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 PRINTED IN U.SA 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 PS 1732.M2 1899 
 
 Main-travelled roads / 
 
 3 1924 014 392 231 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014392231 
 
Main-Travelled 
 Roads 
 
 By 
 HAMLIN GARLAND 
 
 Author of 
 Other Main-Travelled Roads, etc. 
 
 Harper y Brothers 
 
 Publishers 
 New York and London 
 
 -t L 
 

 
 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 Copyright, 1891, by The Arena Publishing Company 
 
 Copyright, 1893, by The Century Co. 
 
 Copyright, 1893, 1899, by Hamlin Garland 
 
To 
 MY FATHER AND MOTHER 
 
 WHOSE HALF-CENTURY PILGRIMAGE ON THE MAIN- 
 TRAVELLED ROAD OF LIFE HAS BROUGHT THEM 
 ONLY TOIL AND DEPRIVATION, THIS BOOK OF STO- 
 RIES IS DEDICATED BY A SON TO WHOM EVERY 
 DAY BRINGS A DEEPENING SENSE OF HIS PARENTS* 
 SILENT HEROISM ******** 
 
THE MA IN -TRAVELLED ROAD in the West {as every- 
 where") is hot and dusty in summer, and desolate and drear with 
 mud in fall and spring, and in winter the winds sweep the snow 
 across it; but it does sometimes cross a rich meadow where the songs 
 of the larks and bobolinks and blackbirds are tangled. Follow it far 
 enough, it may lead past a bend in the river where the water laughs 
 eternally over its shallows. 
 
 Mainly it is long and weary ful, and has a dull little town at one 
 end and a home of toil at the other. Like the main-travelled road 
 of life it is traversed by many classes of people, but the poor and 
 the weary predominate. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Foreword ix 
 
 Introduction i 
 
 A Branch Road 5 
 
 Up the Coolly 45 
 
 Among the Corn-Rows 88 
 
 The Return of A Private 112 
 
 Under THE Lion's Paw 130 
 
 The Creamery Man 145 
 
 A Day's Pleasure 162 
 
 Mrs. Ripley's Trip 171 
 
 Uncle Ethan Ripley 184 
 
 God's Ravens 196 , 
 
 A "Good Fellow's" Wife 212 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 In the summer of 1887, after having been three years in Boston, 
 and six years absent from my old home in northern Iowa, I found 
 myself with money enough to pay my railway fare to Ordway, 
 South Dakota, where my father and mother were living, and as it 
 cost very little extra to go by way of Dubuque and Charles City, I 
 planned to visit Osage, Iowa, and the farm we had opened on Dry 
 Run prairie in 1871. 
 
 Up to this time I had written only a few poems, and some articles 
 descriptive of boy life on the prairie, although I was doing a good 
 deal of thinking and lecturing on land reform, and was regarded 
 as a very intense disciple of Herbert Spencer and Henry George — 
 a singular combination, as I see it now. On my way westward, that 
 summer day in 1887, rural life presented itself from an entirely 
 new angle. The ugliness, the endless drudgery, and the loneliness 
 of the farmer's lot smote me with stern insistence. I was the mili- 
 tant reformer. 
 
 The farther I got from Chicago the more depressing the land- 
 scape became. It was bad enough in our former home in Mitchell 
 County, but my pity grew more intense as I passed from north- 
 west Iowa into southern Dakota. The houses, bare as boxes, 
 dropped on the treeless plains, the barbed-wire fences running at 
 right angles, and the towns mere assemblages of flimsy wooden 
 sheds with painted-pine battlement, produced on me the effect of 
 an almost helpless and sterile poverty. 
 
 My dark mood was deepened into bitterness by my father's farm, 
 where I found my mother imprisoned in a small cabin on the enor- 
 mous sunburnt, treeless plain, with no expectation of ever living 
 anywhere else. Deserted by her sons and failing in health, she en- 
 dured the discomforts of her life uncomplainingly — but my resent- 
 
Foreword vii 
 
 ment of "things as they are" deepened during my talks with hei 
 neighbors who were all housed in the same unshaded cabins in 
 equal poverty and loneliness. The fact that at twenty-seven I was 
 without power to aid my mother in any substantial way added to 
 my despairing mood. 
 
 My savings for the two years of my teaching in Boston wer6 
 not sufficient to enable me to purchase my return ticket, and whei> 
 my father offered me a stacker's wages in the harvest field I ac- 
 cepted and for two weeks or more proved my worth with the 
 fork, which was still mightier — ^with me — than the pen. 
 
 However, I did not entirely neglect the pen. In spite of the dust 
 and heat of the wheat ricks I dreamed of poems and stories. My 
 mind teemed with subjects for fiction, and one Sunday morning I 
 set to work on a story which had been suggested to me by a talk 
 with my mother, and a few hours later I read to her (seated on the 
 low sill of that treeless cottage) the first two thousand words of 
 Mrs. Ripley's Trip, the first of the series of sketches which became 
 Main-Travelled Roads. 
 
 I did not succeed in finishing it, however, till after my return 
 to Boston in September. During the fall and winter of '87 and the 
 winter and spring of '88, I wrote the most of the stories in Main- 
 Travelled Roads, a novelette for the Century Magazine, and a 
 play called "Under the Wheel." The actual work of the composi- 
 tion was carried on in the south attic room of Doctor Cross's house 
 at 21 Seaverns Avenue, Jamaica Plain. 
 
 The mood of bitterness in which these books were written was 
 renewed and augmented by a second visit to my parents in 1889, 
 for during my stay my mother suffered a stroke of paralysis due to 
 overwork and the dreadful heat of the summer. She grew better 
 before the time came for me to return to my teaching in Boston, 
 but I felt like a sneak as I took my way to the train leaving my 
 mother and sister on that bleak and sun-baked plains. 
 
 "Old Paps Flaxen," "Jason Edwards," "A Spoil of Office," and 
 most of the stories gathered into the second volume of Main-Trav- 
 elled Roads were written in the shadow of these defeats. If they 
 seem unduly austere, let the reader remember the times in which 
 
viii Foreword 
 
 they were composed. That they were true of the farms of that day 
 no one can know better than I, for I was there — a farmer. 
 
 Life on the farms of Iowa and Wisconsin — even-on the farms of 
 Dakota — has gained in beauty and security, I will admit, but there 
 are still wide stretches of territory in Kansas and Nebraska where 
 the farmhouse is a lonely shelter. Groves and lawns, better roads, 
 the rural free delivery, the telephone, and the motor car have done 
 much to bring the farmer into a frame of mind where he is con- 
 tented with his lot, but much remains to be done before the stream 
 of young life from the country to the city can be checked. 
 
 The two volumes of Main-Travelled Roads can now be taken 
 to be what William Dean Howells called them, "historical fiction," 
 for they form a record of the farmer's life as I lived it and studied 
 it. In these two books is a record of the privations and hardships of 
 the men and women who subdued the midland wilderness and pre- 
 pared the way for the present golden age of agriculture. 
 
 H. G. 
 
 March i, igzz 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 An interesting phase of fiction, at present, is the material pros- 
 perity of the short story, which seems to have followed its artistic 
 excellence among us with uncommon obedience to a law that ought 
 always to prevail. Until of late the publisher has been able to say 
 to the author, dazzled and perhaps deceived by his magazine suc- 
 cess with short stories, and fondly intending to make a book of 
 them, "Yes. But collections of short stories don't sell. The public 
 won't have them. I don't know why ; but it won't." 
 
 This was never quite true of the short stories of Mr. Bret Harte, 
 or of Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, or of Mr. T. B. Aldrich ; but it was 
 too true of the short stories of most other writers. For some reason, 
 or for none, the very people who liked an author's short stories in 
 the magazine could not bear them, or would not buy them, when he 
 put several of them together in a volume. They then became ob- 
 noxious, or at least undesirable ; somewhat as human beings, agree- 
 able enough as long as they are singly domiciled in one's block, 
 become a positive detriment to the neighborhood when gathered 
 together in a boarding-house. A novel not half so good by the same 
 author would formerly outsell his collection of short stories five 
 times over. Perhaps it would still outsell the stories ; we rather think 
 it would ; but not in that proportion. The hour of the short story 
 in book form has struck, apparently, for with all our love and ven- 
 eration for publishers, we have never regarded them as martyrs to 
 literature, and we do not believe they would now be issuing so 
 many volumes of short stories if these did not pay. Publishers, with 
 all their virtues, are as distinctly made a little lower than the angels 
 as any class of mortals we know. They are, in fact, a tentative and 
 timid kind, never quite happy except in full view of the main 
 chance; and just at this moment, this chance seems to wear the 
 diversified physiognomy of the collected short stories. We do not 
 
 I 
 
2 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 know how it has happened; we should not at all undertake to say; 
 but it is probably attributable to a number of causes. It may be the 
 prodigious popularity of Mr. Kipling, which has broken down all 
 prejudices against the form of his success. The vogue that Mau- 
 passant's tales in the original or in versions have enjoyed may have 
 had something to do with it. Possibly the critical recognition of the 
 American supremacy in this sort has helped. But however it has 
 come about, it is certain that the result has come, and the publish- 
 ers are fearlessly adventuring volumes of short stories on every 
 hand ; and not only short stories by authors of established repute, 
 but by new writers, who would certainly not have found this way 
 to the public some time ago. 
 
 The change by no means indicates that the pleasure in large fic- 
 tion is dying out. This remains of as ample gorge as ever. But it 
 does mean that a quite reasonless* reluctance has given way, and 
 that a young writer can now hope to come under the fire of crit- 
 icism much sooner than before. This may not be altogether a bless- 
 ing ; it has its penalties inherent in the defective nature of criticism, 
 or the critics ; but undoubtedly it gives the young author definition 
 and fixity in the reader's knowledge. It enables him to continue a 
 short-story writer if he likes, or it prepares the public not to be 
 surprised at him if he turns out a novelist. 
 
 II 
 
 These are advantages, and we must not be impatient of any 
 writer who continues a short-story writer when he might freely 
 become a novelist. Now that a writer can profitably do so, he may 
 prefer to grow his fiction on the dwarf stock. He may plausibly 
 contend that this was the original stock, and that the novella was 
 a short story many ages before its name was appropriated by the 
 standard variety, the duodecimo American, or the three-volume 
 English; that Boccaccio was a world-wide celebrity five centuries 
 before George Eliot was known to be a woman. To be sure, we 
 might come back at him with the Greek romancers ; we might ask • 
 him what he had to say to the interminable tales of Heliodorus 
 and Longus, and the rest, and then not let him say. 
 
Introduction 3 
 
 But no such controversy is necessary to the enjoyment of the 
 half dozen volumes of short stories at hand, and we gladly post- 
 pone it till we have nothing to talk about. At present we have only 
 too much to talk about in a book so robust and terribly serious as 
 Mr. Hamlin Garland's volume called Main-Travelled Roads. 
 That is what they call the highways in the part of the West that 
 Mr. Garland comes from and writes about; and these stories are 
 full of the bitter and burning dust, the foul and trampled slush, of 
 the common avenues of life, the life of the men who hopelessly 
 and cheerlessly make the wealth that enriches the alien and the 
 idler, and impoverishes the producer. 
 
 If any one is still at a loss to account for that uprising of the 
 farmers in the West which is the translation of the Peasants' War 
 into modern and republican terms, let him read Main-Travelled 
 Roads, and he will begin to understand, unless, indeed, Mr. Gar- 
 land is painting the exceptional rather than the average. The sto- 
 ries are full of those gaunt, grim, sordid, pathetic, ferocious figures, 
 whom our satirists find so easy to caricature as Hayseeds, and whose 
 blind groping for fairer conditions is so grotesque to the newspapers 
 and so menacing to the politicians. They feel that something is 
 wrong, and they know that the wrong is not theirs. The type 
 caught in Mr. Garland's book is not pretty; it is ugly and often 
 ridiculous ; but it is heart-breaking in its rude despair. 
 
 The story of a farm mortgage, as it is told in the powerful sketch 
 "Under the Lion's Paw," is a lesson in political economy, as well as 
 a tragedy of the darkest cast. "The Return of the Private" is a 
 satire of the keenest edge, as well as a tender and mournful idyl of 
 the unknown soldier who comes back after the war with no blare 
 of welcoming trumpets or flash of streaming flags, but foot-sore, 
 heart-sore, with no stake in the country he has helped to make safe 
 and rich but the poor man's chance to snatch an uncertain sub- 
 sistence from the furrows he left for the battle-field. 
 
 "Up the Coolly," however, is the story which most pitilessly of 
 all accuses our vaunted conditions, wherein every man has the 
 chance to rise above his brother and make himself richer than his 
 fellows. It shows us once for all what the risen man may be, and 
 
4 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 portrays in his good-natured selfishness and indifference that favor- 
 ite ideal of our system. The successful brother comes back to the 
 old farmstead, prosperous, handsome, well-dressed, and full of 
 patronizing sentiment for his boyhood days there, and he cannot 
 understand why his brother, whom hard work and corroding 
 mortgages have eaten all the joy out of, gives him a grudging and 
 surly welcome. It is a tremendous situation, and it is the allegory 
 of the whole world's civilization : the upper dog and the under dog 
 are everywhere, and the under dog nowhere likes it. 
 
 But the allegorical effects are not the primary intent of Mr. 
 Garland's work: it is a work of art, first of all, and we think of 
 fine art; though the material will strike many gentilities as coarse 
 and common. In one of the stories, "Among the Corn-Rows," there 
 is a gogd deal of burly, broad-shouldered humor of a fresh and 
 native kind ; in "Mrs. Ripley's Trip" is a delicate touch, like that 
 of Miss Wilkins; but Mr. Garland's touches are his own, here 
 and elsewhere. He has a certain harshness and bluntness, an indif^ 
 ference to the more delicate charms of style, and he has still to learn 
 that though the thistle is full of an unrecognized poetry, the rose 
 has a poetry, too, that even over-praise cannot spoil. But he has a 
 fine courage to leave a fact with the reader, ungarnished and unvar- 
 nished, which is almost the rarest trait in an Anglo-Saxon writer, 
 so infantile and feeble is the custom of our art; and this attains 
 tragical sublimity in the opening sketch, "A Branch Road," where 
 the lover who has quarrelled with his betrothed comes back to find 
 her mismated and miserable, such a farm wife as Mr. Garland has 
 alone dared to draw, and tempts the broken-hearted drudge away 
 from her loveless home. It is all morally wrong, but the author 
 leaves you to say that yourself. He knows that his business was 
 with those two people, their passions and their probabilities. 
 
 W. D. HOWELLS 
 (In the Editor's Study. "Harper's Magazine"). 
 
A BRANCH ROAD 
 
 In the windless September dawn a voice went ringing clear and 
 sweet, a man's voice, singing a cheap and common air. Yet some- 
 thing in the sound of it told he was young, jubilant, and a happy 
 lover. 
 
 Above the level belt of timber to the east a vast dome of pale 
 undazzling gold was rising, silently and swiftly. Jays called in the 
 thickets where the maples flamed amid the green oaks, with irreg- 
 ular splashes of red and orange. The grass was crisp with frost 
 under the feet, the road smooth and gray-white in color, the air 
 was indescribably pure, resonant, and stimulating. No wonder the 
 man sang! 
 
 He came into view around the curve in the lane. He had a fork 
 on his shoulder, a graceful and polished tool. His straw hat was 
 tilted on the back of his head ; his rough, faded coat was buttoned 
 close to the chin, and he wore thin buckskin gloves on his hands. 
 He looked muscular and intelligent, and was evidently about 
 twenty-two years of age. 
 
 As he walked on, and the sunrise came nearer to him, he stopped 
 his song. The broadening heavens had a majesty and sweetness that 
 made him forget the physical joy of happy youth. He grew almost 
 sad with the vague thoughts and great emotions which rolled in 
 his brain as the wonder of the morning grew. 
 
 He walked more slowly, mechanically following the road, his 
 eyes on the ever-shifting streaming banners of rose and pale green, 
 which made the east too glorious for any words to tell. The air was 
 so still it seemed to await expectantly the coming of the sun. 
 
 Then his mind went forward to Agnes. Would she see it? She 
 was at work, getting breakfast, but he hoped she had time to see it. 
 He was in that mood, so common to him now, wherein he could 
 not fully enjoy any sight or sound unless sharing it with her. Far 
 
 5 
 
6 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 down the road he heard the sharp clatter of a wagon. The roosters 
 were calling near and far, in many keys and tunes. The dogs were 
 barking, cattle-bells were jangling in the wooded pastures, and as 
 the youth passed farmhouses, lights in the kitchen windows showed 
 that the women were astir about breakfast, and the sound of voices 
 and the tapping of curry-combs at the barn told that the men were 
 at their morning chores. 
 
 And the east bloomed broader ! The dome of gold grew brighter, 
 the faint clouds here and there flamed with a flush of red. The 
 frost began to glisten with a reflected color. The youth dreamed as 
 he walked; his broad face and deep earnest eyes caught and re- 
 tained some part of the beauty and majesty of the sky. 
 
 But his brow darkened as he passed a farm gate and a young 
 man of about his own age joined him. The other man was equipped 
 for work like himself. 
 
 "Hello, Will!" 
 
 "Hello, Ed !" 
 
 "Going down to help Dingman thrash !" 
 
 "Yes," replied Will, shortly. It was easy to see he did not wel- 
 come company. 
 
 "So'm I. Who's goin' to do your thrashin' — Dave McTurg?" 
 
 "Yes, I guess so. Haven't spoken to anybody yet." 
 
 They walked on side by side. Will hardly felt like being rudely 
 broken in on in this way. The two men were rivals, but Will, 
 being the victor, would have been magnanimous, only he wanted 
 to be alone with his lover's dream. 
 
 "When do you go back to the Sem ?" Ed asked after a little. 
 
 "Term begins next week. I'll make a break about second week." 
 
 "Le's see : you graduate next year, don't yeh ?" 
 
 "I expect to, if I don't slip up on it." 
 
 They walked on side by side, both handsome fellows ; Ed a little 
 more showy in his face, which had a certain clear-cut precision of 
 line, and a peculiar clear pallor that never browned under the sun. 
 He chewed vigorously on a quid of tobacco, one of his most notice- 
 able bad habits. 
 
 Teams could be heard clattering along on several roads now, 
 
A Branch Road 7 
 
 and jovial voices singing. One team coming along rapidly behind 
 the two men, the driver sung out in good-natured warning, "Get 
 out o' the way, there." And with a laugh and a chirp spurred his 
 horses to pass them. 
 
 Ed, with a swift understanding of the driver's trick, flung out 
 his left hand and caught the end-gate, threw his foric in and leaped 
 after it. Will walked on, disdaining attempt to catch the wagon. 
 On all sides now the wagons of the ploughmen or threshers were 
 getting out into the fields, with a pounding, rumbling sound. 
 
 The pale-red sun was shooting light through the leaves, and 
 warming the boles of the great oaks that stood in the yard, and 
 melting the frost off the great gaudy, red and gold striped thresh- 
 ing machine standing between the stacks. The interest, picturesque- 
 ness, of it all got hold of Will Han nan, accustomed to it as he was. 
 The horses stood about in a circle, hitched to the ends of the six 
 sweeps, every rod shining with frost. 
 
 The driver was oiling the great tarry cog-wheels underneath. 
 Laughing fellows were wrestling about the yard. Ed Kinney had 
 scaled the highest stack, and stood ready to throw the first sheaf. 
 The sun, lighting him where he stood, made his fork-handle gleam 
 like dull gold. Cheery words, jests, and snatches of song rose every- 
 where. Dingman bustled about giving his orders and placing his 
 men, and the voice of big David McTurg was heard calling to the 
 men as they raised the long stacker into place : 
 
 "Heave ho, there ! Up she rises !" 
 
 And, best of all. Will caught a glimpse of a smiling girl-face at 
 the kitchen window that made the blood beat in his throat. 
 
 "Hello, Will!" was the general greeting, given with some con- 
 straint by most of the young fellows, for Will had been going to 
 Rock River to school for some years, and there was a little feeling 
 of jealousy on the part of those who pretended to sneer at the 
 "seminary chaps like Will Hannan and Milton Jennings." 
 
 Dingman came up. "Will, I guess you'd better go on the stack 
 with Ed." 
 
 "All ready. Hurrah, there !" said David in his soft but resonant 
 bass voice that always had a laugh in it. "Come, come, every sucker 
 
8 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 of yeh git hold o' something. All ready!" He waved his hand at 
 the driver, who climbed upon his platform. Everybody scrambled 
 into place. 
 
 The driver began to talk : 
 ^ "Chk, chk\ All ready, boys! Stiddy there, Dan! Chk, chk\ All 
 ready boys ! Stiddy there, boys ! All ready now !" The horses began 
 to strain at the sweeps. The cylinder began to hum. 
 
 "Grab a root there ! Where's my band-cutter ? Here, you, climb 
 on here!" And David reached down and pulled Shep Watson up 
 by the shoulder with his gigantic hand. 
 
 Boo-oo-oo-oom, Boo-woo-woo-oom-oom-ow-own, yarr, yarr ! The 
 whirling cylinder boomed, roared, and snarled as it rose in speed. 
 At last, when its tone became a rattling yell, David nodded to the 
 pitchers and rasped his hands together. The sheaves began to fall 
 from the stack ; the band-cutter, knife in hand, slashed the bands in 
 twain, and the feeder with easy majestic movement gathered them 
 under his arm, rolled them out into an even belt of entering wheat, 
 on which the cylinder tore with its smothered, ferocious snarl. 
 
 Will was very happy in a quiet way. He enjoyed the smooth roll 
 of his great muscles, and the sense of power in his hands as he 
 lifted, turned, and swung the heavy sheaves two by two upon the 
 table, where the band-cutter madly slashed away. His frame, sturdy 
 rather than tall, was nevertheless lithe, and he made a fine figure 
 to look at, so Agnes thought, as she came out a moment and bowed 
 and smiled. 
 
 This scene, one of the jolliest and most sociable of the Western 
 farm, had a charm quite aside from human companionship. The 
 beautiful yellow straw entering the cylinder; the clear yellow- 
 brown wheat pulsing out at the side ; the broken straw, chaff, and 
 dust puffing out on the great stacker ; the cheery whistling and call- 
 ing of the driver ; the keen, crisp air, and the bright sun somehow 
 weirdly suggestive of the passage of time. 
 
 Will and Agnes had arrived at a tacit understanding of mutual 
 love only the night before, and Will was powerfully moved to 
 glance often toward the house, but feared as never before the jokes 
 of his companions. He worked on, therefore, methodically, eagerly ; 
 
A Branch Road 9 
 
 but his thoughts were on the future — the rustle of the oak-tree 
 near by, the noise of whose sere leaves he could distinguish sifting 
 beneath the booming snarl of the machine, was like the sound of a 
 woman's dress : on the sky were great fleets of clouds sailing on the 
 rising wind, like merchantmen bound to some land of love and 
 plenty. 
 
 When the Dingmans first came in, only a couple of years before, 
 Agnes had been at once surrounded by a swarm of suitors. Her 
 pleasant face and her abounding good-nature made her an instant 
 favorite with all. Will, however, had disdained to become one of 
 the crowd, and held himself aloof, as he could easily do, being away 
 at school most of the time. 
 
 The second winter, however, Agnes also attended the seminary, 
 and Will saw her daily, and grew to love her. He had been just a 
 bit jealous of Ed Kinney all the time, for Ed had a certain rakish 
 grace in dancing and a dashing skill in handling a team, which 
 made him a dangerous rival. 
 
 But, as Will worked beside him all the Monday, he felt so 
 secure in his knowledge of the caress Agnes had given him at part- 
 ing the night before that he was perfectly happy — so happy that he 
 didn't care to talk, only to work on and dream as he worked. 
 
 Shrewd David McTurg had his joke when the machine stopped 
 for a few minutes. "Well, you fellers do better'n I expected yeh 
 to, after bein' out so late last night. The first feller I see gappin' 
 has got to treat to the apples." 
 
 "Keep your eye on me," said Shep Watson. 
 
 "You?" laughed one of the others. "Anybody knows if a girl so 
 much as looked crossways at you, you'd fall in a fit.'' 
 
 "Another thing," said David. "I can't have you fellers carryin' 
 grain goin' to the house every minute for fried cakes or cookies." 
 
 "Now you git out," said Bill Young from the straw-pile. "You 
 ain't goin' to have all the fun to yourself." 
 
 Will's blood began to grow hot in his face. If Bill had said much 
 more, or mentioned Agnes by name, he would have silenced him. 
 To have this rough joking come to a close upon the holiest and 
 most exquisite evening of his life was horrible. It was not the words 
 
lo Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 they said, but the tones they used, that vulgarized it all. He 
 breathed a sigh of relief when the sound of the machine began 
 again. 
 
 This jesting made him more wary, and when the call for dinner 
 sounded and he Icnew he was going to see her, he shrank from it. 
 He took no part in the race of the dust-blackened, half-famished 
 men to get at the washing-place first. He took no part in the scurry 
 to get seats at the first table. 
 
 Threshing-time was always a season of great trial to the house- 
 wife. To have a dozen men with the appetites of dragons to cook 
 for, in addition to their other everyday duties, was no small task 
 for a couple of women. Preparations usually began the night before 
 with a raid on a hen-roost, for "biled chickun" formed the piece de 
 resistance of the dinner. The table, enlarged by boards, filled the 
 sitting room. Extra seats were made out of planks placed on chairs, 
 and dishes were borrowed from neighbors, who came for such aid 
 in their turn. 
 
 Sometimes the neighboring women came in to help; but Agnes 
 and her mother were determined to manage the job alone this year, 
 and so the girl, in neat dark dress, her eyes shining, her cheeks 
 flushed with the work, received the men as they came in, dusty, 
 coatless, with grime behind their ears, but a jolly good smile on 
 every face. 
 
 Most of them were farmers of the neighborhood, and her school- 
 mates. The only one she shrank from was Bill Young, with his 
 hard, glittering eyes and red, sordid face. SJie received their jokes, 
 their noise, with a silent smile which showed her even teeth and 
 dimpled her round cheek. "She was good for sore eyes," as one of 
 the fellows said to Shep. She seemed deliciously sweet and dainty 
 to these roughly dressed fellows. 
 
 They ranged along the table with a great deal of noise, boots 
 thumping, squeaking, knives and forks rattling, voices bellowing 
 out. 
 
 "Now hold on, Steve ! Can't hev yeh so near that chickun !" 
 
 "Move along, Shep! I want to be next to the kitchen door! I 
 won't get nothin' with you on that side o' me." 
 
A Branch Road 1 1 
 
 "Oh, that's too thin ! I see what you're " 
 
 "No, I won't need any sugar, if you just smile into it." This 
 from gallant David, greeted with roars of laughter. 
 
 "Now, Dave, s'pose your wife 'ud hear o' that ?" 
 
 "She'd snatch 'im bald-headed, that's what she'd do." 
 
 "Say, somebody drive that ceow down this way," said Bill. 
 
 "Don't get off that drive! It's too old," criticised Shep, passing 
 the milk-jug. 
 
 Potatoes were seized, cut in halves, sopped in gravy, and taken 
 one, two ! Corn cakes went into great jaws like coal into a steam- 
 engine. Knives in the right hand cut meat and scooped gravy up. 
 Great, muscular, grimy, but wholesome fellows t hey were, feed- 
 ing like ancient Norse, and capable of working like demons. They 
 were deep in the process, half-hidden by steam from the potatoes 
 and stew, in less than sixty seconds after their entrance. 
 
 With a shrinking from the comments of the others upon his 
 regard for Agnes, Will assumed a reserved and almost haughty air 
 toward his fellow-workmen, and a curious coldness toward her. As 
 he went in, she came forward smiling brightly. 
 
 "There's one more place, Will." A tender, involuntary droop in 
 her voice betrayed her, and Will felt a wave of hot blood surge over 
 him as the rest roared. 
 
 "Ha, ha! Oh, there'd be a place for himl" 
 
 "Don't worry. Will ! Always room for you here!" on/J^ 
 
 Will took his seat with a sudden, angry flame. / '^'^ 
 
 "Why can't she keep it from these fools?" was his thofight. He 
 didn't even thank her for showing him the chair. 
 
 She flushed vividly, but smiled back. She was so proud and 
 happy she didn't care very much if they did know it. But as Will 
 looked at her with that quick, angry glance, she was hurt and puz- 
 zled. She redoubled her exertions to please him, and by so doing 
 added to the amusement of the crowd that gnawed chicken-bones, 
 rattled cups, knives, and forks, and joked as they ate with small 
 grace and no material loss of time. 
 
 Will remained silent through it all, eating his potato, in marked 
 contrast to the others, with his fork instead of his knife and drinking 
 
12 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 his tea from his cup rather than from his saucer — "finnickies" which 
 did not escape the notice of the girl nor the sharp eyes of the 
 workmen. 
 
 "See that ? That's the way we do down to the Sem ! See ? Fork 
 for pie in yer right hand! Hey? / can't do it? Watch me!" 
 
 When Agnes leaned over to say, "Won't you have some more 
 tea, Will ?" they nudged each other and grinned. "Aha ! What did 
 I tell you?" 
 
 Agnes saw at last that for some reason Will didn't want her to 
 show her regard for him — that he was ashamed of it in some way, 
 and she was wounded. To cover it up, she resorted to the natural 
 device of smiling and chatting with the others. She asked Ed if he 
 wouldn't have another piece of pie. 
 
 "I will — with a fork, please." 
 
 "This is 'bout the only place you can use a fork," said Bill 
 Young, anticipating a laugh by his own broad grin. 
 
 "Oh, that's too old," said Shep Watson. "Don't drag that out 
 agin. A man that'll eat seven taters " 
 
 "Shows who does the work." 
 
 "Yes, with his jaws," put in Jim Wheelock, the driver. 
 
 "If you'd put in a little more work with soap'n water before 
 comin' in to dinner, it 'ud be a religious idee," said David. 
 
 "It ain't healthy to wash." 
 
 "Well, you'll live forever, then." 
 
 "He ain't washed his face sence I knew 'im." 
 
 "Oh, that's a little too tough ! He washes once a week," said Ed 
 Kinney. 
 
 "Back of his ears?" inquired David, who was munching a dough- 
 nut, his black eyes twinkling with fun. 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "What's the cause of it?" 
 
 "Dade says she won't kiss 'im if he don't." 
 
 Everybody roared. 
 
 "Good fer Dade ! I wouldn't if I was in her place." 
 
 Wheelock gripped a chicken-leg imperturbably, and left it bare 
 as a toothpick with one or two bites at it. His face shone in two 
 
A Branch Road 13 
 
 clean sections around his nose and mouth. Behind his ears the dirt 
 lay undisturbed. The grease on his hands could not be washed off. 
 
 Will began to suffer now because Agnes treated the other fel- 
 lows too well. With a lover's exacting jealousy, he wanted her in 
 some way to hide their tenderness from the rest, and also to show 
 her indifference to men like Young and Kinney. He didn't stop to 
 inquire of himself the justice of such a demand, nor just how it 
 was to be done. He only insisted she ought to do it. 
 
 He rose and left the table at the end of his dinner without hav- 
 ing spoken to her, without even a tender, significant glance, and 
 he knew, too, that she was troubled and hurt. But he was suffering. 
 It seemed as if he had lost something sweet, lost it irrecoverably. 
 
 He noticed Ed Kinney and Bill Young were the last to come 
 out, just before the machine started up again after dinner, and he 
 saw them pause outside the threshold and laugh back at Agnes 
 standing in the doorway. Why couldn't she keep those fellows at a 
 distance, not go out of her way to bandy jokes with them? 
 
 In some way the elation of the morning was gone. He worked on 
 doggedly now, without looking up, without listening to the leaves, 
 y\rithout seeing the sunlighted clouds. Of course he didn't think that 
 she meant anything by it, but it irritated him and made him un- 
 happy. She gave herself too freely. 
 
 Toward the middle of the afternoon the machine stopped for 
 some repairing; and while Will lay on his stack in the bright yel- 
 low sunshine, shelling wheat in his hands and listening to the wind 
 in the oaks, he heard his name and her name mentioned on the 
 other side of the machine, where the measuring-box stood. He lis- 
 tened. 
 
 "She's pretty sweet on him, ain't she? Did yeh notus how she 
 stood around over him?" 
 
 "Yes ; an' did yeh see him when she passed the cup o' tea down 
 over his shoulder ?" 
 
 Will got up, white with wrath, as they laughed. 
 
 "Someway he didn't seem to enjoy it as I would. I wish she'd 
 reach her arm over my neck that way." 
 
14 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 Will walked around the machine, and came on the group lying 
 on the chaff near the straw-pile. 
 
 "Say, I want you fellers to understand that I won't have any 
 more of this talk. I won't have it." 
 
 There was a dead silence. Then Bill Young got up. 
 
 "What yeh goin' to do about ut?" he sneered. 
 
 "I'm going to stop it." 
 
 The wolf rose in Young. He moved forward, his ferocious soul 
 flaming from his eyes. 
 
 "W'y, you damned seminary dude, I can break you in two !" 
 
 An answering glare came into Will's eyes. He grasped and 
 slightly shook his fork, which he had brought with him uncon- 
 sciously. 
 
 "If you make one motion at me, I'll smash your head like an egg- 
 shell !" His voice was low but terrific. There was a tone in it that 
 made his own blood stop in his veins. "If you think I'm going to 
 roll around on this ground with a hyena like you, you've mistaken 
 your man. I'll kill you, but I won't fiffht with such men as you are." 
 
 Bill quailed and slunk away, muttering some epithet like "cow- 
 ard." 
 
 "I don't care what you call me, but just remember what I say: 
 you keep your tongue of? that girl's affairs." 
 
 "That's the talk," said David. "Stand up for your girl always, 
 but don't use a fork. You can handle him without that." 
 
 "I don't propose to try," said Will, as he turned away. As he 
 did so, he caught a glimpse of Ed Kinney at the well, pumping a 
 pail of water for Agnes, who stood beside him, the sun on her 
 beautiful yellow hair. She was laughing at something Ed was say- 
 ing as he slowly moved the handle up and down. 
 
 Instantly, like a foaming, turbid flood, his rage swept out toward 
 her. "It's all her fault," he thought, grinding his teeth. "She's a 
 fool. If she'd hold herself in, like other girls! But no; she must 
 smile and smile at everybody." It was a beautiful picture, but it 
 sent a shiver through him. 
 
 He worked on with teeth set, white with rage. He had an im- 
 pulse that would have made him assault her with words as with a 
 
A Branch Road 15 
 
 knife. He was possessed of a terrible passion which was hitherto 
 latent in him, and which he now felt to be his worst self. But he 
 was powerless to exorcise it. His set teeth ached with the stress of 
 his muscular tension, and his eyes smarted with the strain. 
 
 He had always prided himself on being cool, calm, above these 
 absurd quarrels which his companions had indulged in. He didn't 
 suppose he could be so moved. As he worked on, his rage settled 
 into a sort of stubborn bitterness — stubborn bitterness of conflict 
 between this evil nature and his usual self. It was the instinct of 
 possession, the organic feeling of proprietorship of a woman, which 
 rose to the surface and mastered him. He was not a self-analyst, of 
 course, being young, though he was more introspective than the 
 ordinary farmer. 
 
 He had a great deal of time to think it over as he worked on 
 there, pitching the heavy bundles, but still he did not get rid of 
 the miserable desire to punish Agnes ; and when she came out, look- 
 ing very pretty in her straw hat, and came around near his stack, 
 he knew she came to see him, to have an explanation, a smile ; and 
 yet he worked away with his hat pulled over his eyes, hardly notic- 
 ing her. 
 
 Ed went over to the edge of the stack and chatted with her ; and 
 she — poor girl! — feeling Will's neglect, could only put a good 
 face on the matter, and show that she didn't mind it, by laughing 
 back at Ed. 
 
 All this Will saw, though he didn't appear to be looking. And 
 when Jim Wheelock — Dirty Jim — ^with his whip in his hand, 
 came up and playfully pretended to pour oil on her hair, and she 
 laughingly struck at him with a handful of straw. Will wouldn't 
 have looked at her if she had called him by name. 
 
 She looked so bright and charming in her snowy apron and her 
 boy's straw hat tipped jauntily over one pink ear, that David and 
 Steve and Bill, and even Shep, found a way to get a word with 
 her, and the poor fellows in the high straw-pile looked their dis- 
 appointment and shook their forks in mock rage at the lucky dogs 
 on the ground. But Will worked on like a fiend, while the dapples 
 of light and shade fell on the bright face of the merry girl. 
 
1 6 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 To save his soul from hell-flames he couldn't have gone over 
 there and smiled at her. It was impossible. A wall of bronze seemed 
 to have arisen between them. Yesterday — ^last night — seemed a 
 dream. The clasp of her hands at his neck, the touch of her lips, 
 were like the caresses of an ideal in some revery long ago. 
 
 As night drew on the men worked with a steadier, more mechan- 
 ical action. No one spoke now. Each man was intent on his work. 
 No one had any strength or breath to waste. The driver on his 
 power, changed his weight on weary feet and whistled and sang at 
 the tired horses. The feeder, his face gray with dust, rolled the 
 grain into the cylinder so evenly, so steadily, so swiftly that it ran 
 on with a sullen, booming roar. Far up on the straw-pile the stack- 
 ers worked with the steady, rhythmic action of men rowing a boat, 
 their figures looming vague and dim in the flying dust and cha£f, 
 outlined against the glorious yellow- and orange-tinted clouds. 
 
 "Phe-e-eew-ee," whistled the driver with the sweet, cheery, ris- 
 ing notes of a bird. "Chk, chk, chk\ Phe-e-eew-e! Go on there, 
 boys! Chk, chk, chk I Step up there, Dan, step up! (Snapl) Phe-e 
 eew-ee ! G'-wan — g'-wan, g'-wan ! Chk, chk, chk I Wheest, wheest, 
 wheest! Chk, chk I" 
 
 In the house the women were setting the table for supper. The 
 sun had gone down behind the oaks, flinging glorious rose-color 
 and orange shadows along the edges of the slate-blue clouds. Agnes 
 stopped her work at the kitchen window to look up at the sky, and 
 cry silently. "What was the matter with Will ?" She felt a sort of 
 distrust of him now. She thought she knew him so well, but now 
 he was so strange. 
 
 "Come, Aggie," said Mrs. Dingman, "they're gettin' 'most 
 down to the bottom of the stack. They'll be pilin' in here soon." 
 
 "Phe-e-eew-ee! G'-wan, Doll! G'-wan, boys! Chk, chk, chkl 
 Phe-ereew-ee !" called the driver out in the dusk, cheerily swinging 
 the whip over the horses' backs. Boom-oo-oo-oom ! roared the ma- 
 chine, with a muffled, monotonous, solemn tone. "G'-wan, boys! 
 G'-wan, g'-wan!" 
 
 Will had worked unceasingly all day. His muscles ached with 
 fatigue. His hands trembled. He clenched his teeth, however. 
 
A Branch Road 17 
 
 and worked on, determined not to yield. He wanted them to under- 
 stand that he could do as much pitching as any of them, and read 
 Casar's Commentaries beside. It seemed as if each bundle were 
 the last he could raise. The sinews of his wrist pained him so ; they 
 seemed swollen to twice their natural size. But still he worked on 
 grimly, while the dusk fell and the air grew chill. 
 
 At last the bottom bundle was pitched up, and he got down on 
 his knees to help scrape the loose wheat into baskets. What a sweet 
 relief it was to kneel down, to release the fork, and let the worn 
 and cramping muscles settle into rest! A new note came into the 
 driver's voice, a soothing tone, full of kindness and admiration for 
 the work his teams had done. 
 
 "Wo-o-o, lads! Stiddy-y-y, boys! Wo-o-o, there, Dan. Stiddy, 
 stiddy, old man! Ho, there!" The cylinder took on a lower key, 
 with short, rising yells, as it ran empty for a moment. The 
 horses had been going so long that they came to a stop reluctantly. 
 At last David called, "Turn out!" The men seized the ends of 
 the sweep, David uncoupled the tumbling-rods, and Shep slowly 
 shoved a sheaf of grain into the cylinder, choking it into silence. 
 
 The stillness and the dusk were very impressive. So long had 
 the bell-metal cog-wheel sung its deafening song into his ear that, 
 as he walked away into the dusk. Will had a weird feeling of being 
 suddenly deaf, and his legs were so numb that he could hardly feel 
 the earth. He stumbled away like a man paralyzed. 
 
 He took out his handkerchief, wiped the dust from his face as 
 best he could, shook his coat, dusted his shoulders with a grain- 
 sack, and was starting away, when Mr. Dingman, a rather feeble, 
 elderly man, came up. 
 
 "Come, Will, supper's all ready. Go in and eat." 
 
 "I guess I'll go home to supper." 
 
 "Oh, no ; that won't do. The women'U be expecting you to stay." 
 
 The men were laughing at the well, the warm yellow light shone 
 from the kitchen, the chill air making it seem very inviting, and 
 she was there — waiting! But the demon rose in him. He knew 
 Agnes would expect him, and she would cry that night with 
 disappointment, but his face hardened. "I guess I'll go home," he 
 
1 8 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 said, and his tone was relentless. He turned and walked away, 
 hungry, tired — so tired he stumbled, and so unhappy he could 
 have wept. 
 
 II 
 
 On Thursday the county fair was to be held. The fair is one of 
 the gala-days of the year in the country districts of the West, and 
 one of the times when the country lover rises above expense to the 
 extravagance of hiring a top-buggy, in which to take his sweet- 
 heart to the neighboring town. 
 
 It was customary to prepare for this long beforehand, for the 
 demand for top-buggies was so great the liveryman grew dictatorial, 
 and took no chances. Slowly but surely the country beaux began 
 to compete with the clerks, and in many cases actually outbid them, 
 as they furnished their own horses and could bid higher, in conse- 
 quence, on the carriages. 
 
 Will had secured his brother's "rig," and early on Thursday 
 morning he was at work, busily washing the mud from the carriage, 
 dusting the cushions, and polishing up the buckles and rosettes on 
 his horses' harnesses. It was a beautiful, crisp, clear dawn — the 
 ideal day for a ride; and Will was singing as he worked. He had 
 regained his real self, and, having passed through a bitter period 
 of shame, was now joyous with anticipation of forgiveness. He 
 looked forward to the day, with its chances of doing a thousand 
 little things to show his regret and his love. 
 
 He had not seen Agnes since Monday; Tuesday he did not go 
 back to help thresh, and Wednesday he had been obliged to go to 
 town to see about board for the coming term; but he felt sure of 
 her. It had all been arranged the Sunday before ; she'd expect him, 
 and he was to call at eight o'clock. 
 
 He polished up the colts with merry tick-tack of the brush and 
 comb, and after the last stroke on their shining limbs, threw his 
 tools in the box and went to the house. 
 
 "Pretty sharp last night," said his brother John, who was scrub- 
 bing his face at the cistern. 
 
A Branch Road 19 
 
 "Should say so by that rim of ice," Will replied, dipping his 
 hands into the icy water. 
 
 "I ought 'o stay home to-day and dig 'tates," continued the older 
 man, thoughtfully, as they went into the woodshed and wiped 
 consecutively on the long roller-towel. "Some o' them Early Rose 
 lay right on top o' the ground. They'll get nipped, sure." 
 
 "Oh, I guess not. You'd better go. Jack; you don't get away 
 very often. And then it would disappoint Nettie and the children 
 so. Their little hearts are overflowing," he ended, as the door 
 opened and two sturdy little boys rushed out. 
 
 "B'ekfuss, poppa; all yeady!" 
 
 The kitchen table was set near the stove ; the window let in the 
 sun, and the smell of sizzling sausages and the aroma of coffee filled 
 the room. 
 
 The kettle was doing its duty cheerily, and the wife, with 
 flushed face and smiling eyes, was hurrying to and fro, her heart 
 full of anticipation of the day's outing. 
 
 There was a hilarity almost like some strange intoxication on 
 the part of the two children. They danced and chattered and 
 clapped their chubby brown hands and ran to the windows cease- 
 lessly. 
 
 "Is yuncle Will goin' yide nour buggy?" 
 
 "Yus; the buggy and the colts." 
 
 "Is he goin* to take his girl?" 
 
 Will blushed a little and John roared. 
 
 "Yes, I'm goin' " 
 
 "Is Aggie your girl?" 
 
 "H'yer! h'yer! young man," called John, "you're gettin' per- 
 sonal." 
 
 "Well, set up!" said Nettie, and with a good deal of clatter they 
 drew around the cheerful table. 
 
 Will had already begun to see the pathos, the pitiful significance 
 of his great joy over a day's outing, and he took himself a little to 
 task at his own selfish freedom. He resolved to stay at home some 
 time and let Nettie go in his place. A few hours in the middle of 
 the day on Sunday, three or four holidays in summer; the rest of 
 
20 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 the year, for this cheerful little wife and her patient husband, was 
 made up of work — ^work which accomplished little and brought 
 them almost nothing that was beautiful. 
 
 While they were eating breakfast, teams began to clatter by, 
 huge lumber-wagons with three seats across, and a boy or two 
 jouncing up and down with the dinner baskets near the end-gate. 
 The children rushed to the window each time to announce who 
 it was and how many there were in. 
 
 But as Johnny said "firteen" each time, and Ned wavered between 
 "seven" and "sixteen," it was doubtful if they could be relied upon. 
 They had very little appetite, so keen was their anticipation of the 
 ride and the wonderful sights before them. Their little hearts 
 shuddered with joy at every fresh token of preparation — a joy that 
 made Will say, "Poor little men!" 
 
 They vibrated between the house and the barn while the chores 
 were being finished, and their happy cries started the young roosters 
 into a renewed season of crowing. And when at last the wagon was 
 brought out and the horses hitched to it, they danced like mad 
 sprites. 
 
 After they had driven away. Will brought out the colts, hitched 
 them in, and drove them to the hitching-post. Then he leisurely 
 dressed himself in his best suit, blacked his boots with considerable 
 exertion, and at about 7.30 o'clock climbed into his carriage and 
 gathered up the reins. 
 
 He was quite happy again. The crisp, bracing air, the strong 
 pull of the spirited young team, put all thought of sorrow behind 
 him. He had planned it all out. He would first put his arm round 
 her and kiss her — there would not need to be any words to tell her 
 how sorry and ashamed he was. She would know ! 
 
 Now, when he was alone and going toward her on a beautiful 
 morning, the anger and btiterness of Monday fled away, became 
 unreal, and the sweet dream of the Sunday parting grew the reality. 
 She was waiting for him now. She had on her pretty blue dress, 
 and the wide hat that always made her look so arch. He had said 
 about eight o'clock. 
 
 The swift team was carrying him along the crossroad, which was 
 
A Branch Road 21 
 
 little travelled, and he was alone with his thoughts. He fell again 
 upon his plans. Another year at school for them both, and then 
 he'd go into a law office. Judge Brown had told him he'd give* 
 him '^ 
 
 "Whoa! Ho!" 
 
 There was a swift lurch that sent him flying over the dasher. 
 A confused vision of a roadside ditch full of weeds and bushes, 
 and then he felt the reins in his hands and heard the snorting horses 
 trample on the hard road. 
 
 He rose dizzy, bruised, and covered with dust. The team he 
 held securely and soon quieted. The cause of the accident was 
 plain; the right fore-wheel had come off, letting the front of the 
 buggy drop. He unhitched the excited team from the carriage, 
 drove them to the fence and tied them securely, then went back to 
 find the wheel, and the burr whose failure to hold its place had 
 done all the mischief. He soon had the wheel on, but to find the 
 burr was a harder task. Back and forth he ranged, looking, scrap- 
 ing in the dust, searching the weeds. 
 
 He knew that sometimes a wheel will run without the burr for 
 many rods before coming off, and so each time he extended his 
 search. He traversed the entire half mile several times, each time 
 his rage and disappointment getting more bitter. He ground his 
 teeth in a fever of vexation and dismay. 
 
 He had a vision of Agnes waiting, wondering why he did not 
 come. It was this vision that kept him from seeing the burr in the 
 wheel-track, partly covered by a clod. Once he passed it looking 
 wildly at his watch, which was showing nine o'clock. Another time 
 he passed it with eyes dimmed with a mist that was almost tears 
 of anger. 
 
 There is no contrivance that will replace an axle-burr, and farm- 
 yards have no unused axle-burrs, and so Will searched. Each 
 moment he said: "I'll give it up, get onto one of the horses, and 
 go down and tell her." But searching for a lost axle-burr is like 
 fishing; the searcher expects each moment to find it. And so he 
 iHroped, and ran breathlessly, furiously, back and forth, and at last 
 
22 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 kicked away the clod that covered it, and hurried, hot and dusty, 
 cursing his stupidity, back to the team. 
 
 It was ten o'clock as he climbed again into the buggy, and started 
 his team on a swift trot down the road. What would she think? 
 He saw her now with tearful eyes and pouting lips. She was sitting 
 at the window, with hat and gloves on; the rest had gone, and 
 she was waiting for him. 
 
 But she'd know something had hapepened, because he had prom- 
 ised to be there at eight. He had told her what team he'd have. 
 (He had forgotten at this moment the doubt and distrust he had 
 given her on Monday.) She'd know he'd surely come. 
 
 But there was no smiling or tearful face watching at the win- 
 dow as he came down the lane at a tearing pace, and turned into 
 the yard. The house was silent, and the curtains down. The silence 
 sent a chill to his heart. Something rose up in his throat to choke 
 him. 
 
 "Agnes!" he called. "Hello! I'm here at last!" 
 
 There was no reply. As he sat there the part he had played on 
 Monday came back to him. She may be sick! he thought, with a 
 cold thrill of fear. 
 
 An old man came round the corner of the house with a potato 
 fork in his hands, his teeth displayed in a grin. 
 
 "She ain't here. She's gone." 
 
 "Gone!" 
 
 "Yes — more'n an hour ago." 
 
 "Who'd she go with?" 
 
 "Ed Kinney," said the old fellow, with a malicious grin. "I 
 guess your goose is cooked." 
 
 Will lashed the horses into a run, and swung round the yard 
 and out of the gate. His face was white as a dead man's, and his 
 teeth were set like a vise. He glared straight ahead. The team ran 
 wildly, steadily homeward, while their driver guided them uncon- 
 sciously without seeing them. His mind was filled with a tempest 
 of rages, despairs, and shames. 
 
 That ride he will never forget. In it he threw away all his 
 plans. He gave up his year's schooling. He gave up his law aspira- 
 
A Branch Road 23 
 
 tions. He deserted his brother and his friends. In the dizzying 
 whirl of passions he had only one clear idea — to get away, to go 
 West, to escape from the sneers and laughter of his neighbors, and 
 to make her suffer by it all. 
 
 He drove into the yard, did not stop to unharness the team, but 
 rushed into the house, and began packing his trunk. His plan was 
 formed. He would drive to Cedarville, and hire some one to bring 
 the team back. He had no thought of anything but the shame, the 
 insult, she had put upon him. Her action on Monday took on the 
 same levity it wore then, and excited him in the same way. He saw 
 her laughing with Ed over his dismay. He sat down and wrote a 
 letter to her at last — a letter that came from the ferocity of the 
 mediaeval savage in him: 
 
 "If you want to go to hell with Ed Kinney, you can. I won't say 
 a word. That's where he'll take you. You won't see me again." 
 
 This he signed and sealed, and then he bowed his head and wept 
 like a girl. But his tears did not soften the effect of the letter. It 
 went as straight to its mark as he meant it should. It tore a seared 
 and ragged path to an innocent, happy heart, and he took a savage 
 pleasure in the thought of it as he rode away in the cars toward 
 the South. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The seven years lying between 1880 and 1887 made a great 
 change in Rock River and in the adjacent farming land. Signs 
 changed and firms went out of business with characteristic Western 
 ease of shift. The trees grew rapidly, dwarfing the houses beneath 
 them, and contrasts of newness and decay thickened. 
 
 Will found the country changed, as he walked along the dusty 
 road from Rock River toward "The Corners." The landscape was 
 at its fairest and liberalest, with its seas of corn, deep-green and 
 moving with a mournful rustle, in sharp contrast to its flashing 
 blades ; its gleaming fields of barley, and its wheat already mottled 
 with soft gold in the midst of its pea-green. 
 
 The changes were in the hedges, grown higher, in the greater 
 predominance of cornfields and cattle pastures, and especially in 
 
24 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 the deetruction of homes. As he passed on, Will saw the grass 
 growing and cattle feeding on a dozen places where homes had 
 once stood. They had given place to the large farm and the stock- 
 raiser. Still the whole scene was bountiful and beautiful to the eye. 
 
 It was especially grateful to Will, for he had spent nearly all his 
 years of absence among the rocks, treeless swells, and bleak cliffs 
 of the Southwest. The crickets rising before his dusty feet appeared 
 to him something sweet and suggestive, and the cattle feeding in 
 the clover moved him to deep thought — ^they were so peaceful and 
 slow motioned. 
 
 As he reached a little popple tree by the roadside, he stopped, 
 removed his. broad-brimmed hat, put his elbows on the fence, and 
 looked hungrily upon the scene. The sky was deeply blue, with 
 only here and there a huge, heavy, slow-moving, massive, sharply 
 outlined cloud sailing like a berg of ice in a shoreless sea of azure. 
 
 In the fields the men were harvesting the ripened oats and 
 barley, and the sound of their machines clattering, now low, now 
 loud, came to his ears. Flies buzzed near him, and a kingbird clat- 
 tered overhead. He noticed again, as he had many a time when a 
 boy, that the softened sound of the far-off reaper was at times 
 exactly like the hum of a bluebottle fly buzzing heedlessly about 
 his ears. 
 
 A slender and very handsome young man was shocking grain 
 near the fence, working so desperately he did not see Will until 
 greeted by him. He looked up, replied to the greeting, but kept 
 on until he had finished his last stook; then he came to the shade 
 of the tree and took off his hat. 
 
 "Nice day to sit under a tree and fish." 
 
 Will smiled. "I ought to know you, I suppose; I used to live 
 here years ago." 
 
 "Guess not; we came in three years ago." 
 
 The young man was quick-spoken and pleasant to look at. Will 
 felt freer with him. 
 
 "Are the Kinneys still living over there?" He nodded at a group 
 of large buildings. 
 
 i'Tom lives there. Old man lives with Ed. Tom ousted the 
 
A Branch Road 25 
 
 old man some way, nobody seems to know how, and so he lives with 
 Ed." 
 
 Will wanted to ask after Agnes, but hardly felt able. "I s'pose 
 John Hannan is on his old farm?" 
 
 "Yes. Got a good crop this year." 
 
 Will looked again at the fields of rustling wheat over which 
 the clouds rippled, and said with an air of conviction: "This lays 
 over Arizony, dead sure." 
 
 "You're from Arizony, then?" 
 
 "Yes — a good ways from it," Will replied, in a way that stopped 
 further question. "Good luck!" he added, as he walked on down 
 the road toward the creek, musing. 
 
 "And the spring — I wonder if that's there yet. I'd like a drink. ""^ 
 The sun seemed hotter than at noon, and he walked slowly. At 
 the bridge that spanned the meadow brook, just where it widened 
 over a sandy ford, he paused again. He hung over the rail and j 
 looked at the minnows swimming there. 
 
 "I wonder if they're the same identical chaps that used to boil 
 and glitter there when I was a boy — looks so. Men change from 
 one generation to another, but the fish remain the same. The same 
 eternal procession of types. I suppose Darwin 'ud say their environ- 
 ment remains the same." 
 
 He hung for a long time over the railing, thinking of a vast 
 number of things, mostly vague, fitting things, looking into the 
 clear depths of the brook, and listening to the delicious liquid note 
 of a blackbird swinging on the willow. Red lilies starred the grass 
 with iire, and golden-rod and chicory grew everywhere ; purple and 
 orange and yellow-green the prevailing tints. 
 
 Suddenly a water-snake wriggled across the dark pool above the 
 ford and the minnows disappeared under the shadow of the bridge. 
 Then Will sighed, lifted his head and walked on. There seemed to 
 be something prophetic in it, and he drew a long breath. That's 
 the way his plans broke and faded away. 
 
 Human life does not move with the regularity of a clock. In/ 
 living there are gaps and silences when the soul stands still in its] 
 flight through abysses — and there come times of trial and times' 
 
26 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 of struggle when we grow old without knowing it. Body and soul 
 change appallingly. 
 
 Seven years of hard, busy life had made changes in Will. 
 
 His face had grown bold, resolute, and rugged; some of its 
 delicacy and all of its boyish quality was gone. His figure was 
 stouter, erect as of old, but less graceful. He bore himself like a 
 man accustomed to look out for himself in all kinds of places. It 
 was only at times that there came into his deep eyes a preoccupied, 
 almost sad, look w^hich showed kinship with his old self. 
 
 This look was on his face as he walked toward the clump of 
 trees on the right of the road. 
 
 He reached the grove of popple trees and made his way at once 
 to the spring. When he saw it, he was again shocked. They had 
 allowed it to fill with leaves and dirt! 
 
 Overcome by the memories of the past, he flung himself down 
 on the cool and shadowy bank, and gave himself up to the bitter- 
 sweet reveries of a man returning to his boyhood's home. He was 
 filled somehow with a strange and powerful feeling of the passage 
 of time; with a vague feeling of the mystery and elusiveness of 
 human life. The leaves whispered it overhead, the birds sang it 
 in chorus with the insects, and far above, in the measureless spaces 
 of sky, the hawk told it in the silence and majesty of his flight 
 from cloud to cloud. 
 
 It was a feeling hardly to be expressed in words — one of those 
 emotions whose springs lie far back in the brain. He lay so still the 
 chipmunks came curiously up to his very feet, only to scurry away 
 when he stirred like a sleeper in pain. 
 
 He had cut himself off entirely from the life at The Corners. 
 He had sent money home to John, but had concealed his own 
 address carefully. The enormity of his folly now came back to him, 
 racking him till he groaned. 
 
 He heard the patter of feet and half-mumbled monologue of a 
 running child. He roused up and faced a small boy, who started 
 back in terror like a wild fawn. He was deeply surprised to find a 
 man there, where only boys and squirrels now came. He stuck his 
 fist in his eye, and was backing away when Will spoke. 
 
A Branch Road 27 
 
 "Hold on, sonny! Nobody's hit you. Come, I ain't goin' to eat 
 yeh." He took a bit of money from his pocket. "Come here and 
 tell me your name. I want to talk with you." 
 
 The boy crept upon the dime. 
 
 Will smiled. "You ought to be a Kinney. What is your name ?" 
 
 "Tomath Dickinthon Kinney. I'm thix and a half. I've got a 
 colt," lisped the youngster, breathlessly, as he crept toward the 
 money. 
 
 "Oh, you are, eh? Well, now are you Tom's boy, or Ed's?" 
 
 "Tomth's boy. Uncle Ed heth got a little " 
 
 "Ed got a boy?" 
 
 "Yeth, thir — a lil baby. Aunt Agg letth me hold 'im." 
 
 "Agg! Is that her name?" 
 
 "Tha'th what Uncle Ed callth her." 
 
 The man's head fell, and it was a long time before he asked 
 his next question. 
 
 "How is she anyhow?" 
 
 "Purty well," piped the boy, with a prolongation of the last 
 words into a kind of chirp. "She'th been thick, though," he added. 
 
 "Been sick? How long?" 
 
 "Oh, a long time. But she ain't thick abed; she'th awful poor, 
 though. Gran'pa thayth she'th poor ath a rake." ^ 
 
 "Oh, he does, eh?" 
 
 "Yeth, thir. Uncle Ed he jawth her, then she crieth." 
 
 Will's anger and remorse broke out in a groaning curse. "O my 
 God ! I see it all. That great lunkin houn' has made life a hell for 
 her." Then that letter came back to his mind — ^he had never been 
 able to put it out of his mind — he never would till he saw her and 
 asked her pardon. 
 
 "Here, my boy, I want you to tell me some more. Where does 
 your Aunt Agnes live?" 
 
 "At gran'pa'th. You know where my gran'pa livth?" 
 
 "Well, you do. Now I want you to take this letter to her. Give 
 it to her." He wrote a little note and folded it. "Now dust out o' 
 here." 
 
 The boy slipped away through the trees like a rabbit; his little 
 
28 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 brown feet hardly rustled. He was like some little wood-animal. 
 Left alone, the man fell back into a revery which lasted till the 
 shadows fell on the thick little grove around the spring. He rose 
 at last, and taking his stick in hand, walked out to the wood again 
 and stood there gazing at the sky. He seemed loath to go farther. 
 The sky was full of flame-colored clouds floating in a yellow-green 
 sea, where bars of faint pink streamed broadly away. 
 
 As he stood there, feeling the wind lift his hair, listening to the 
 crickets' ever-present crying, and facing the majesty of space, a 
 strange sadness and despair came into his eyes. 
 
 Drawing a quick breath, he leaped the fence and was about going 
 on up the road, when he heard, at a little distance, the sound of a 
 drove of cattle approaching, and he stood aside to allow them to 
 pass. They snuffed and shied at the silent figure by the fence, and 
 hurried by with snapping heels — a peculiar sound that made Will 
 smile with pleasure. 
 
 An old man was driving the cows, crying out : 
 
 "St — boy, there ! Go on there ! Whay, boss !" 
 
 Will knew that hard-featured, wiry old man, now entering his 
 second childhood and beginning to limp painfully. He had his 
 hands full of hard clods which he threw impatiently at the lum- 
 bering animals. 
 
 "Good-evening, uncle!" 
 
 "I ain't y'r uncle, young man." 
 
 His dim eyes did not recognize the boy he had chased out of his 
 plum patch years before. 
 
 "I don't know yeh, neither," he added. 
 
 "Oh, you will, later on. I'm from the East. I'm a sort of a rela- 
 tive to John Hannan." 
 
 "I want 'o Icnow if y' be !" the old man exclaimed, peering closer. 
 
 "Yes. I'm just up from Rock River. John's harvesting, I s'pose?" 
 
 "Yus." 
 
 "Where's the youngest one — ^Will?" 
 
 "William? Oh! he's a bad aig — he lit out f'r the West some- 
 where. He was a hard boy. He stole a hatful o' my plums once. 
 
A Branch Road 29 
 
 He left home kind o' sudden. He ! he ! I s'pose he was purty well 
 cut up jest about them days." 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 The old man chuckled. 
 
 "Well, y' see, they was both courtin' Agnes then, an' my son cut 
 William out. Then William he lit out f'r the West, Arizony, 'r 
 California, 'r somewhere out West. Never been back sence." 
 
 "Ain't, heh?" 
 
 "No. But they say he's makin' a terrible lot o' money," the old 
 man said in a hushed voice. "But the way he makes it is awful scaly. 
 I tell my wife if I had a son like that an' he'd send me home a 
 bushelbasket o' money, earnt like that, I wouldn't touch a finger 
 to it — no sir!" 
 
 "You wouldn't? Why?" 
 
 " 'Cause it ain't right. It ain't made right noway, you " 
 
 "But how is it made? What's the feller's trade?" 
 
 "He's a gambler — that's his trade! He plays cards, and every 
 cent is bloody. I wouldn't touch such money nohow you could 
 fix it." 
 
 "Wouldn't, heh?" The young man straightened up. "Well, 
 look-a-here, old man: did you ever hear of a man foreclosing a 
 mortgage on a widow and two boys, getting a farm f'r one quarter 
 what it was really worth? You damned old hypocrite! I know all 
 about you and your whole tribe — you old blood-sucker !" 
 
 The old man's jaw fell; he began to back away. 
 
 "Your neighbors tell some good stories about you. Now skip 
 along after those cows, or I'll tickle your old legs for you!" 
 
 The old man, appalled and dazed at this sudden change of man- 
 ner, backed away, and at last turned and racked ofE up the road, 
 looking back with a wild face, at which the young man laughed 
 remorselessly. 
 
 "The doggoned old skeesucks!" Will soliloquized as he walked 
 up the road. "So that's the kind of a character he's been givin' me!" 
 
 "Hullo! A whippoorwill. Takes a man back into childhood — 
 No, don't 'whip poor Will' ; he's got all he can bear now." 
 
30 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 He came at last to the little farm Dingman had owned, and he 
 stopped in sorrowful surprise. The barn had been moved away, 
 the garden ploughed up, and the house, turned into a granary, 
 stood with boards nailed across its dusty, cobwebbed windows. 
 The tears started into the man's eyes; he stood staring at 
 it silently. 
 
 In the face of this house the seven years that he had last lived 
 stretched away into a wild waste of time. It stood as a symbol of his 
 wasted, ruined life. It was personal, intimately personal, this decay 
 of her home. 
 
 All that last scene came back to him ; the booming roar of the 
 threshing-machine, the cheery whistle of the driver, the loud, merry 
 shouts of the men. He remembered how warmly the lamp-light 
 streamed out of that door as he turned away tired, hungry, sullen 
 with rage and jealousy. Oh, if he had only had the courage of a 
 man! 
 
 Then he thought of the boy's words. She was sick, Ed abused 
 her. She had met her punishment. A hundred times he had been 
 over the whole scene. A thousand times he had seen her at the 
 pump smiling at Ed Kinney, the sun lighting her hair; and he 
 never thought of that without hardening. 
 
 At this very gate he had driven up that last forenoon; to find 
 that she had gone with Ed. He had lived that sickening, depressing 
 moment over many times, but not times enough to keep down the 
 bitter passion he had felt then, and felt now as he went over it 
 in detail. 
 
 He was so happy and confident that morning, so perfectly cer- 
 tain that all would be made right by a kiss and a cheery jest. And 
 now! Here he stood sick with despair and doubt of all the world. 
 He turned away from the desolate homestead and walked on. 
 
 "But I'll see her — ^just once more. And then " 
 
 And again the mighty significance, responsibility of life, fell upon 
 him. He_jdtj_as_XQung people seldom do, the irrevocableness of 
 luq ng. the d etgrininatf^, unaltf^Tpblpj-barair-tpr of living. He deter- 
 mined to begin to live in some new way — ^just how he could not 
 say. 
 
A Branch Road 31 
 
 IV 
 
 Old man Kinney and his wife were getting their Sunday-school 
 lessons with much bickering, when Will drove up the next day to 
 the dilapidated gate and hitched his team to a leaning-post under 
 the oaks. Will saw the old man's head at the open window, but 
 no one else, though he looked eagerly for Agnes as he walked up 
 the familiar path. There stood the great oak under whose shade 
 he had grown to be a man. How close the great tree seemed to 
 stand to his heart, someway! As the wind stirred in the leaves, it 
 was like a rustle of greeting. 
 
 In that old house they had all lived, and his mother had toiled 
 for thirty years. A sort of prison after all. There they were all born, 
 and there his father and his little sister had died. And then it 
 passed into old Kinney's hands. 
 
 Walking along up the path he felt a serious weakness in his 
 limbs, and he made a pretence of stopping to look at a flower-bed 
 containing nothing but weeds. After seven years of separation he 
 was about to face once more the woman whose life came so near 
 being a part of his — ^Agnes, now a wife and a mother. 
 
 How would she look ? Would her face have that old-time peachy 
 bloom, her mouth that peculiar beautiful curve ? She was large and 
 fair, he recalled, hair yellow and shining, eyes blue 
 
 He roused himself. This was nonsense! He was trembling. He 
 composed himself by looking around again. / 
 
 "The old scoundrel has let the weeds choke out the flowers and 
 surround the bee-hives. Old man Kinney never believed in anything 
 but a petty utility." 
 
 Will set his teeth, and marched up to the door and struck it like 
 a man delivering a challenge. Kinney opened the door, and started 
 back in fear when he saw who it was. 
 
 "How de do? How de do?" said Will, walking in, his eyes fixed 
 on a woman seated beyond, a child in her lap. 
 
 Agnes rose, without a word; a fawn-like, startled widening of 
 the eyes, her breath coming quick, and her face flushing. They 
 
32 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 couldn't speak ; they only looked at each other an instant, then Will 
 shivered, passed his hand over his eyes and sat down. 
 
 There was no one there but the old people, who were looking 
 at him in bewilderment. They did not notice any confusion in 
 Agnes's face. She recovered first. 
 
 "I'm glad to see you back. Will," she said, rising and putting 
 the sleeping child down in a neighboring room. As she gave him 
 her hand, he said: 
 
 "I'm glad to get back, Agnes. I hadn't ought to have gone." 
 Then he turned to the old people: 
 
 "I'm Will Hannan. You needn't be scared. Daddy; I was 
 jokin' last night." 
 
 "Dew tell! I want 'o know!" exclaimed Granny. "Wal, I 
 never! An' you're my little Willy boy who ust 'o be in my class? 
 Well ! Well ! W'y pa, ain't he growed tall ! Grew handsome tew. 
 I ust 'o think he was a dretful humly boy; but my sakes, that 
 mustache " 
 
 "Wal, he gave me a turrible scare last night. My land! scared 
 me out of a year's growth," cackled the old man. 
 
 This gave them all a chance to laugh, and the air was cleared. It 
 gave Agnes time to recover herself, and to be able to meet Will's 
 eyes. Will himself was powerfully moved ; his throat swelled and 
 tears came to his eyes every time he looked at her. 
 
 She was worn and wasted incredibly. The blue of her eyes 
 seemed dimmed and faded by weeping, and the old-time scarlet of 
 her lips had iJeen washed away. The sinews of her neck showed 
 painfully when she turned her head, and her trembling hands were 
 worn, discolored, and lumpy at the joints. 
 
 Poor girl! She knew she was under scrutiny, and her eyes felt 
 hot and restless. She wished to run away and cry, but she dared 
 not. She stayed, while Will began to tell her of his life and to ask 
 questions about old friends. 
 
 The old people took it up and relieved her of any share in it; 
 and Will, seeing that she was suffering, told some funny stories 
 which made the old people cackle in spite of themselves. 
 
 But it was forced merriment on Will's part. Once or twice 
 
A Branch Road 33 
 
 Agnes smiled, with just a little flash of the old-time sunny temper. 
 But there was no dimple in the cheek now, and the smile had more 
 suggestion of an invalid — or even a skeleton. He was almost ready 
 to take her in his arms and weep, her face appealed so pitifully to 
 him. 
 
 "It's most time f'r Ed to be gittin' back, ain't it, pa?" 
 
 "Sh'd say 't was! He jest went over to Hobkirk's to trade 
 horses. It's dretful tryin' to me to have him go off tradin' horses 
 on Sunday. Seems if he might wait till a rainy day, 'r do it 
 evenin's. I never did believe in horse-tradin' anyhow." 
 
 "Have y' come back to stay, Willie?" asked the old lady. 
 
 "Well — it's hard tellin'," answered Will, looking at Agnes. 
 
 "Well, Agnes, ain't you goin' to git no dinner? I'm 'bout ready 
 f'r dinner. We must git to church early today. Elder Wheat is 
 goin' to preach, an' they'll be a crowd. He's goin' to hold com- 
 munion." 
 
 "You'll stay to dinner. Will?" asked Agnes. 
 
 "Yes — if you wish it." 
 
 "I do wish it." 
 
 "Thank you ; I want to have a good visit with you. I don't know 
 when I'll see you again." 
 
 As she moved about, getting dinner on the table, Will sat with 
 gloomy face, listening to the "clack" of the old man. The room 
 was a poor little sitting room, with furniture worn and shapeless ; 
 hardly a touch of pleasant color, save here and thare a little bit 
 of Agnes's handiwork. The lounge, covered with calico, was rick- 
 ety; the rocking-chair matched it, and the carpet of rags was 
 patched and darned with twine in twenty places. Everywhere wasj 
 the influence of the Kinneys. The furniture looked^like'lHein, in 
 
 Agnes was outwardly calm, but her real distraction did not 
 escape Mrs. Kinney's hawk-like eyes. 
 
 "Well, I declare if you hain't put the butter on in one o' my 
 blue chainy saucers? Now you know I don't allow that saucer to 
 be took down by nobody. I don't see what's got into yeh! Any- 
 
34 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 body'd s'pose you never see any comp'ny b'fore — wouldn't they, 
 pa?" 
 
 "Sh'd say th' would," said pa, stopping short in a long story 
 about Ed. "Seems if we couldn't keep anything in this house sep'- 
 rit from the rest. Ed he uses my curry-comb " 
 
 He launched out a long list of grievances, to which Will shut 
 his ears as completely as possible, and was thinking how to stop him, 
 when there came a sudden crash. Agnes had dropped a plate. 
 
 "Good land o' Goshen!" screamed Granny. "If you ain't the 
 worst I ever see. I'll bet that's my grapevine plate. If it is — Well, 
 of all the mercies, it ain't. But it might 'a' ben. I never see your 
 beat — ^never ! That's the third plate since I came to live here." 
 
 "Oh, look-a-here. Granny," said Will, desperately, "don't make 
 so much fuss about the plate. What's it worth, anyway? Here's a 
 dollar." 
 
 Agnes cried quickly: 
 
 "Oh, don't do that. Will ! It ain't her plate. It's my plate, and 
 I can break every plate in the house if I want to," she cried de- 
 fiantly. 
 
 "Course you can," Will agreed. 
 
 "Wal, she can't\ Not while I'm around," put in Daddy. "I've 
 helped to pay f'r them plates, if she does call 'em her'n " 
 
 "What the devul is all this row about? Agg, can't you get along 
 without stirring up the old folks every time I'm out o' the 
 house ?" 
 
 The speaker was Ed, now a tall and slouchily dressed man of 
 thirty-two or three; his face still handsome in a certain dark, 
 cleanly-cut style, but he wore a surly look as he lounged in with 
 insolent swagger, clothed in greasy overalls and a hickory shirt. 
 
 "Hello, Will ! I heard you'd got home. John told me as I came 
 along." 
 
 They shook hands, and Ed slouched down on the lounge. Will 
 could have kicked him for laying the blame of the dispute upon 
 Agnes; it showed him in a flash just how he treated her. He dis- 
 dained to quarrel; he simply silenced and dominated her. 
 
 Will asked a few questions about crops, with such grace as he 
 
A Branch Road 35 
 
 could show, and Ed, with keen eyes fixed on Will's face, talked 
 easily and stridently. 
 
 "Dinner ready?" he asked of Agnes. "Where's Pete?" 
 
 "He's asleep." 
 
 "All right. Let 'im sleep. Well, let's go out an' set up. Come, 
 Dad, sling away that Bible and come to grub. Mother, what the 
 devul are you snifflin' at ? Say, now, look here ! If I hear any more 
 about this row, I'll simply let you walk down to meetin'. Come, 
 Will, set up." 
 
 He led the way into the little kitchen where the dinner was set. 
 
 "What was the row about? Hain't been breakin' some dish, 
 Agg?" 
 
 "Yes, she has," broke in the old lady. 
 
 "One o' the blue ones?" winked Ed. 
 
 "No, thank goodness, it was a white one." 
 
 "Well, now, I'll git into that dod-gasted cubberd some day an' 
 break the whole eternal outfit. I ain't goin' to have this damned 
 jawin' goin' on," he ended, brutally unconscious of his own 
 "jawin'." CVWVUj,,^^ Ufe '--^w^-^-^=w.^ 
 
 After this the dinner proceeded m comparative silence, Agnes 
 sobbing under breath. The room was small and very hot ; the table 
 was warped so badly that the dishes had a tendency to slide to the 
 centre; the walls were bare plaster, grayed with time; the food 
 was poor and scant, and the flies absolutely swarmed upon every- 
 thing, like bees. Otherwise the room was clean and orderly. 
 
 "They say you've made a pile o' money out West, Bill. I'm glad 
 of it. We fellers back here don't make anything. It's a dam tight 
 squeeze. Agg, it seems to me the flies are devilish thick to-day. 
 Can't you drive 'em out ?" 
 
 Agnes felt that she must vindicate herself a little. 
 
 "I do drive 'em out, but they come right in again. The screen- 
 door is broken and they come right in." 
 
 "I told Dad to fix that door," 
 
 "But he won't do it for me." 
 
 Ed rested his elbows on the table and fixed his bright black eyes 
 on his father. 
 
36 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Say, what d' you mean by actin' like a mule? I swear I'll trade 
 you off f'r a yaller dog. What do / keep you round here for any- 
 way — to look purty?" 
 
 "I guess I've as good a right here as you have, Ed Kinney." 
 
 "Oh, go soak y'r head, old man. If you don't 'tend out here 
 a little better, down goes your meat-house ! I won't drive you down 
 to meetin' till you promise to fix that door. Hear me !" 
 
 Daddy began to snivel. Agnes could not look up for shame. 
 Will felt sick. Ed laughed. 
 
 "I c'n bring the old man to terms that way ; he can't walk very 
 well late years, an' he can't drive my colt. You know what a cuss 
 I used to be about fast nags? Well, I'm just the same. Hobkirk's 
 got a colt I want. Say, that reminds me : your team's out there by 
 the fence. I forgot. I'll go out and put 'em up." 
 
 "No, never mind ; I can't stay but a few minutes." 
 
 "Goin' to be round the country long?" 
 
 "A week — maybe." 
 
 Agnes looked up a moment, and then let her eyes fall. 
 
 "Goin' back West, I s'pose?" 
 
 "No. May go East, to Europe, mebbe." 
 
 "The devul y' say! You must 'a' made a ten-strike out West." 
 
 "They say it didn't come lawful," piped Daddy, over his black- 
 berries and milk. 
 
 "Oh, you shet up, who wants your put-in? Don't work in any o' 
 your Bible on us." 
 
 Daddy rose to go into the other room. 
 
 "Hold on, old man. You goin' to fix that door?" 
 
 "Course I be," quavered he. 
 
 "Well see 't y' do, that's all. Now get on y'r duds, an' I'll go an' 
 hitch up." He rose from the table. "Don't keep me waiting." 
 
 He went out unceremoniously, and Agnes was alone with Will. 
 
 "Do you go to church?" he asked. She shook her head. "No, I 
 don't go anjTvhere now. I have too much to do ; I haven't strength 
 left. And I'm not fit anyway." 
 
 "Agnes, I want to say something to you ; not now — ^af ter they're 
 gone." 
 
A Branch Road 37 
 
 He went into the other room, leaving her to wash the dinner- 
 things. She worked on in a curious, almost dazed way, a dream of 
 something sweet and irrevocable in her eyes. Will represented so 
 much to her. His voice brought up times and places that thrilled 
 her like song. He was associated with all that was sweetest and 
 most care-free and most girlish in her life. 
 
 Ever since the boy had handed her that note she had been re- 
 living those days. In the midst of her drudgery she stopped to 
 dream — to let some picture come back into her mind. She was a 
 student again at the Seminary, and stood in the recitation-room 
 with suffocating beat of the heart; Will was waiting outside — 
 waiting in a tremor like her own, to walk home with her under 
 the maples. 
 
 Then she remembered the painfully sweet mixture of pride and 
 fear with which she walked up the aisle of the little church behind 
 him. Her pretty new gown rustled, the dim light of the church 
 had something like romance in it, and he was so strong and hand- 
 some. Her heart went out in a great silent cry to God 
 
 "Oh, let me be a girl again!" 
 
 She did not look forward to happiness. She hadn't power to look 
 forward at all. 
 
 As she worked, she heard the high, shrill voices of the old people 
 as they bustled about and nagged at each other. 
 
 "Ma, where 's my specticles?" '(^^.^j^ U/^-<- 4 c-o-'-^^ 
 
 "I ain't seen y'r specticles." - s>A^ ' " '-■^Y^ '"^ 
 
 "You have, too." ^- -^^ V • ^-''--'^ 
 
 "I ain't neither." 
 
 "You had 'em this forenoon." 
 
 "Didn't no such thing. Them was my own brass-bowed ones. You 
 had your'n jest 'fore goin' to dinner. If you'd put 'em into a 
 proper place you'd find 'em again.'' 
 
 "I want 'o know if I would," the old man snorted. 
 
 "Wal, you'd orter know." 
 
 "Oh, you're awful smart, ain't yeh? You never have no trouble, 
 and use mine — do yeh ? — an' lose 'em so 't I can't " 
 
38 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "And if this is the thing that goes on when I'm here it must 
 be hell when visitors are gone," thought Will. 
 
 "Willy, ain't you goin' to meetin'?" 
 
 "No, not to-day. I want to visit a little with Agnes, then I've 
 got to drive back to John's." 
 
 "Wall, we must be goin'. Don't you leave them dishes f'r me to 
 wash," she screamed at Agnes as she went out the door. "An' if 
 we don't git home by five, them caaves orter be fed." 
 
 As Agnes stood at the door to watch them drive away. Will 
 studied her, a smothering ache in his heart as he saw how thin and 
 bent and weary she was. In his soul he felt that she was a dying 
 woman unless she had rest and tender care. 
 
 As she turned, she saw something in his face — a pity and an 
 agony of self-accusation — that made her weak and white. She sank 
 into a chair, putting her hand on her chest, as if she felt a failing 
 of breath. Then the blood came back to her face and her eyes filled 
 with tears. 
 
 "Don't — don't look at me like that," she said in a whisper. His 
 pity hurt her. 
 
 At sight of her sitting there pathetic, abashed, bewildered, like 
 some gentle animal. Will's throat contracted so that he could not 
 speak. His voice came at last in one terrific cry 
 
 "Oh, Agnes, for God's sake forgive me!" He knelt by her side 
 and put his arm about her shoulders and kissed her bowed head. A 
 curious numbness involved his whole body ; his voice was husky, the 
 tears burned in his eyes. His whole soul and body ached with his 
 pity and his remorseful, self-accusing wrath. 
 
 "It was all my fault. Lay it all to me. ... I am the one to 
 bear it. . . . Oh, I've dreamed a thousand times of sayin' this to 
 you, Aggie! I thought if I could only see you again and ask your 
 forgiveness, I'd — " He ground his teeth together in his assault 
 upon himself. "I threw my life away an' killed you — that's what 
 I did!" 
 
 He rose, and raged up and down the room till he had mastered 
 himself. 
 
 "What did you think I meant that day of the thrashing?" he 
 
A Branch Road 39 
 
 said, turning suddenly. He spoke of it as if it were but a month or 
 two past. 
 
 She lifted her head and looked at him in a slow way. She seemed 
 to be remembering. The tears lay on her hollow cheeks. 
 
 "I thought you was ashamed of me. I didn't know — ^why " 
 
 He uttered a snarl of self-disgust. 
 
 "You couldn't know. Nobody could tell what I meant. But why 
 didn't you write? I was ready to come back. I only wanted an 
 excuse — only a line." 
 
 "How could I, Will — after your letter?" 
 
 He groaned, and turned away. 
 
 "And Will, I — I got mad too. I couldn't write." 
 
 "Oh, that letter — I can see every line of it! F'r God's sake, 
 don't think of it again ! But I didn't think, even when I wrote that 
 letter, that I'd find you where you are. I didn't think. I hoped, 
 anyhow, Ed Kinney wouldn't " 
 
 She stopped him with a startled look in her great eyes. 
 
 "Don't talk about him — it ain't right. I mean it don't do any 
 good. What could I do, after father died ? Mother and I. Besides, 
 I waited three years to hear from you. Will." 
 
 He gave a strange, choking cry. It burst from his throat — that 
 terrible thing, a man's sob of agony. She went on, curiously calm 
 now. 
 
 "Ed was good to me; and he offered a home, anyway, for 
 mother " 
 
 "And all the time I was waiting for some line to break down 
 my cussed_priie, so I could write to you and explain. But you did 
 go with Ed to the fair," he ended suddenly, seeking a morsel of 
 justification for himself. 
 
 "Yes. But I waited an' waited ; and I thought you was mad at 
 me, so when they came I — no, I didn't really go with Ed. There 
 was a wagon-load of them." 
 
 "But I started," he explained, "but the wheel came off. I didn't 
 send word because I thought you'd feel sure I'd come. If you'd only 
 trusted me a little more — No! It was all my fault. I acted like 
 a crazy fool. I didn't stop to reason about anything." 
 
40 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 They sat in silence after these explanations. The sound of the 
 snapping wings of the grasshoppers came through the windows, and 
 a locust high in a poplar sent down his ringing whir. 
 
 "It can't be helped now, Will," Agnes said at last, her voice full 
 of the woman's resignation. "We've got to bear it." 
 
 Will straightened up. "Bear it?" He paused. "Yes, I s'pose so. 
 If you hadn't married Ed Kinney! Anybody but him. How did 
 you do it?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," she answered, wearily brushing her hair 
 back from her eyes. "It seemed best when I did it — and it can't be 
 helped now." There was infinite, dull despair and resignation in 
 her voice. 
 
 Will went over to the window. He thought how bright and 
 handsome Ed used to be. "After all, it's no wonder you married 
 him. Life pushes us into such things." Suddenly he turned, some- 
 thing resolute and imperious in his eyes and voice. 
 
 "It can be helped, Aggie," he said. "Now just listen to me. 
 We've made an awful mistake. We've lost seven years o' life, but 
 that's no reason why we should waste the rest of it. Now hold on ; 
 don't interrupt me just yet. I come back thinking just as much 
 of you as ever. I'm not going to say a word more about Ed; let 
 the past stay past. I'm going to talk about the future." 
 
 She looked at him in a daze of wonder as he went on. 
 
 "Now I've got some money, I've got a third interest in a ranch, 
 and I've got a standing offer to go back on the Santa Fee road as 
 conductor. There is a team standing out there. I'd like to make 
 another trip to Cedarville — ^with you " 
 
 "Oh, Will, don't!" she cried; "for pity's sake don't talk " 
 
 "Wait!" he exclaimed, imperiously. "Now look at it. Here you 
 are in hell! Caged up with two old crows picking the life out of 
 you. They'll kill you — I can see it; you're being killed by inches. 
 You can't go anywhere, you can't have anything. Life is just tor- 
 ture for you " 
 
 She gave a little moan of anguish and despair, and turned her 
 face to her chair-back. Her shoulders shook with weeping, but she 
 listened. He went to her and stood with his hand on the chair-back. 
 
A Branch Road 41 
 
 His voice trembled and broke. "There's just one way to get out 
 of this, Agnes. Come with me. He don't care for you; his whole 
 idea of women is that they are created for his pleasure and to keep 
 house. Your whole life is agony. Come ! Don't cry. There's a chance 
 for life yet." 
 
 She didn't speak, but her sobs were less violent ; his voice grow- 
 ing stronger reassured her. 
 
 "I'm going East, maybe to Europe; and the woman who goes!' 
 with me will have nothing to do but get strong and well again. I've 
 made you suffer so, I ought to spend the rest of my life making 
 you happy. Come! My wife will sit with me on the deck of the 
 steamer and see the moon rise, and walk with me by the sea, till 
 she gets strong and happy again — till the dimples get back into 
 her cheeks. I never will rest till I see her eyes laugh again." 
 
 She rose flushed, wild-eyed, breathing hard with the emotion his 
 vibrant voice called up, but she could not speak. He put his hand 
 gently upon her shoulder, and she sank down again. And he went 
 on with his appeal. There was something hypnotic, dominating, 
 in his voice and eyes. 
 
 On his part there was no passion of an ignoble sort, only a 
 passion of pity and remorse, and a sweet, tender, reminiscent love. 
 He did not love the woman before him so much as the girl whose 
 ghost she was — the woman whose promise she was. He held him- 
 self responsible for it all, and he throbbed with desire to repair the 
 ravage he had indirectly caused. There was nothing equivocal in his 
 position — nothing to disown. How others might look at it, he did 
 not consider, and did not care. His impetuous soul was carried to 
 a point where nothing came in to mar or divert. 
 
 "And then after you're well, after our trip, we'll come back — 
 to Houston, or somewhere in Texas, and I'll build my wife a house 
 that will make her eyes shine. My cattle will give us a good living, 
 and she can have a piano and books, and go to the theatre and con- 
 certs. Come, what do you think of that?" 
 
 Then she heard his words beneath his voice somehow, and they 
 produced pictures that dazzled her. Luminous shadows moved be- 
 
42 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 fore her eyes, drifting across the gray background of her poor, 
 starved, work-weary life. 
 
 As his voice ceased the rosy cloud faded, and she realized again 
 the faded, musty little room, the calico-covered furniture, and 
 looking down at her own cheap and ill-fitting dress, she saw her 
 ugly hands lying there. Then she cried out with a gush of tears: 
 
 I "Oh, Will, I'm so old and homely now, I ain't fit to go with 
 you now ! Oh, why couldn't we have married then ?" 
 
 She was seeing herself as she was then, and so was he; but it 
 deepened his resolution. How beautiful she used to be ! He seemed 
 
 'to see her there as if she stood in perpetual sunlight, with a warm 
 sheen in her hair and dimples in her cheeks. 
 
 She saw her thin red wrists, her gaunt and knotted hands. There 
 was a pitiful droop in the thin, pale lips, and the tears fell slowly 
 from her drooping lashes. He went on : 
 
 "Well, it's no use to cry over what was. We must think of what 
 we're going to do. Don't worry about your looks; you'll be the 
 prettiest woman in the country when we get back. Don't wait, 
 Aggie; make up your mind." 
 
 5 She hesitated, and was lost. 
 "What will people say?" 
 
 "I don't care what they say," he flamed out. "They'd say, stay 
 here and be killed by inches. I say you've had your share of suffer- 
 ing. They'd say — the liberal ones — stay and get a divorce ; but how 
 do you know we can get one after you've been dragged through 
 the mud of a trial? We can get one as well in some other state. 
 Why should you be worn out at thirty? What right or justice is 
 there in making you bear all your life the consequences of our — 
 my schoolboy folly?" 
 
 I As he went on his argument rose to the level of Browning's 
 philosophy. 
 
 "We can make this experience count for us yet. But we mustn't 
 let a mistake ruin us — it should teach us. What right has any one 
 to keep you in a hole ? God don't expect a toad to stay in a stump 
 and starve if it can get out. He don't ask the snakes to suffer as 
 you do." 
 
A Branch Road 43 
 
 She had lost the threads of right and wrong out of her hands. 
 Shewaslost in a maze, but she was not moved by passion. Flesh had 
 ceased to st ir her ; but there was vast power in the Inew and thrill- 
 "i^j^rdsjher deliverer spoke. He seemed to open a door for her, 
 and through it turrets shone and great ships crossed on dim blue 
 seas. 
 
 "You can't live here, Aggie. You'll die in less than five years. It 
 would kill me to see you die here. Come ! It's suicide." 
 
 She did not move, save the convulsive motion of her breath and 
 the nervous action of her fingers. She stared down at a spot in the 
 carpet. She could not face him. 
 
 He grew insistent, a sterner note creeping into his voice. 
 
 "If I leave this time of course you know I'll never come back." 
 
 Her hoarse breathing, growing quicker each moment, was her 
 only reply. 
 
 "I'm done," he said with a note of angry disappointment. He 
 did not give her up, however. "I've told you what I'd do for you. 
 Now, if you think " 
 
 "Oh, give me time to think, Will!" she cried out, lifting her 
 face. 
 
 He shook his head. "No. You might as well decide now. It won't 
 be any easier to-morrow. Come, one minute more and I go out o' 
 that door — unless — " He crossed the room slowly, doubtful him- 
 self of his desperate last measure. "My hand is on the knob. Shall 
 I open it?" 
 
 She stopped breathing; her fingers closed convulsively on the 
 chair. As he opened the door she sprang up. 
 
 "Don't go, Will! Don't go, please don't! I need you here — 
 I " 
 
 "That ain't the question. Are you going with me, Agnes?" 
 "Yes, yes ! I tried to speak before. I trust you. Will ; you're - 
 
 He flung the door open wide. "See the sunlight out there shining 
 on that field o' wheat? That's where I'll take you — out into the 
 sunshine. You shall see it shining on the Bay of Naples. Come, get 
 on your hat ; don't take anything more'n you actually need. Leave 
 the past behind you " 
 
44 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 The woman turned wildly and darted into the little bedroom. 
 The man listened. He whistled in surprise almost comical. He had 
 forgotten the baby. He could hear the mother talking, cooing. 
 
 "Mommie's 'ittle pet ! She wasn't goin' to leave her 'ittle man — 
 no, she wasn't! There, there, don't 'e cry. Mommie ain't goin' 
 away and leave him — ^wicked mommie ain't — 'ittle treasure!" 
 
 She was confused again; and when she reappeared at the door, 
 with the child in her arms, there was a wandering look on her 
 face pitiful to see. She tried to speak, tried to say, "Please go. 
 Will." 
 
 He designedly failed to understand her whisper. He stepped 
 forward. "The baby! Sure enough. Why, certainly! to the mother 
 belongs the child. Blue eyes, thank heaven !" 
 
 He put his arm about them both. She obeyed silently. There was 
 something irresistible in his frank, clear eyes, his sunny smile, his 
 strong brown hand. He slammed the door behind them. 
 
 "That closes the door on your sufferings," he said, smiling down 
 at her. "Good-by to it all." 
 
 The baby laughed and stretched out its hands toward the light. 
 
 "Boo, boo!" he cried. 
 
 "What's he talking about?" 
 
 She smiled in perfect trust and fearlessness, seeing her child' 
 face beside his own. "He says it's beautiful." 
 
 "Oh, he does! I can't follow his French accent." 
 
 She smiled again, in spite of herself. Will shuddered with a thrill 
 of fear, she was so weak and worn. But the sun shone on the 
 dazzling, rustling wheat, the fathomless sky, blue as a sea, bent 
 above them — and the world lay before them. 
 
UP THE COOLLY 
 
 The ride from Milwaukee to the Mississippi is a fine ride at 
 any time, superb in summer. To lean back in a reclining-chair and 
 whirl away in a breezy July day, past lakes, groves of oak, past 
 fields of barley being reaped, past hay-fields, where the heavy grass 
 is toppling before the swift sickle, is a panorama of delight, a road 
 full of delicious surprises, where down a sudden vista lakes open, 
 or a distant wooded hill looms darkly blue, or swift streams, foam- 
 ing deep down the solid rock, send whiffs of cool breezes in at the 
 window. 
 
 It has majesty, breadth. The farming has nothing apparently 
 petty about it. All seems vigorous, youthful, and prosperous. Mr. 
 Howard McLane in his chair let his newspaper fall on his lap, and 
 gazed out upon it with dreaming eyes. It had a certain mysterious 
 glamour to him ; the lakes were cooler and brighter to his eye, the 
 greens fresher, and the grain more golden than to any one else, for 
 he was coming back to it all after an absence of ten years. It was, 
 besides, his West. He still took pride in being a Western man. 
 
 His mind all day flew ahead of the train to the little town, far 
 on toward the Mississippi, where he had spent his boyhood and 
 youth. As the train passed the Wisconsin River, with its curiously . 
 carved cliffs, its cold, dark, swift-swirling water eating slowly 
 under cedar-clothed banks, Howard began to feel curious little 
 movements of the heart, like those of a lover nearing his sweetheart. 
 
 The hills changed in character, growing more intimately recog- 
 nizable. They rose higher as the train left the ridge and passed 
 down into the Black River valley, and specifically into the La 
 Crosse valley. They ceased to have any hint of upheavals of rock, 
 and became simply parts of the ancient level left standing after the 
 water had practically given up its post-glacial scooping action. 
 
 It was about six o'clock as he caught sight of the splendid broken 
 
 45 
 
46 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 line of hills on which his baby eyes had looked thirty-five years ago. 
 A few minutes later, and the train drew up at the grimy little 
 station set into the hillside, and, giving him just time to leap off, 
 plunged on again toward the West. Howard felt a ridiculous weak- 
 ness in his legs as he stepped out upon the broiling-hot, splintery 
 planks of the station and faced the few idlers lounging about. He 
 simply stood and gazed with the same intensity and absorption one 
 of the idlers might show standing before the Brooklyn Bridge. 
 
 The town caught and held his eyes first. How poor and dull 
 and sleepy and squalid it seemed ! The one main street ended at 
 the hillside at his left, and stretched away to the north, between 
 two rows of the usual village stores, unrelieved by a tree or a 
 touch of beauty. An unpaved street, with walled, drab-colored, 
 miserable, rotting wooden buildings, with the inevitable battle- 
 ments; the same — only worse and more squalid — was the town. 
 
 The same, only more beautiful still, was the majestic amphithea- 
 ter of green wooded hills that circled the horizon, and toward which 
 he lifted his eyes. He thrilled at the sight. 
 
 "Glorious!" he cried involuntarily. 
 
 Accustomed to the White Mountains, to the AUeghenies, he had 
 wondered if these hills would retain their old-time charm. They 
 did. He took off his hat to them as he stood there. Richly wooded, 
 with gently sloping green sides, rising to massive square or rounded 
 tops with dim vistas, they glowed down upon the squat little 
 town, gracious, lofty in their greeting, immortal in their vivid and 
 delicate beauty. 
 
 He was a goodly figure of a man as he stood there beside his 
 valise. Portly, erect, handsomely dressed, and with something 
 unusually winning in his brown mustache and blue eyes, something 
 scholarly suggested by the pinch-nose glasses, something strong in 
 the repose of the head. He smiled as he saw how unchanged was 
 the grouping of the old loafers on the salt-barrels and nail-kegs. 
 He recognized most of them — a little dirtier, a little more bent, 
 and a little grayer. 
 
 They sat in the same attitudes, spat tobacco with the same calm 
 delight, and joked each other, breaking into short and sudden fits 
 
Up the Coolly 47 
 
 of laughter, and pounded each other on the back, just as when he 
 was a student at the La Crosse Seminary and going to and fro 
 daily on the train. 
 
 They ruminated on him as he passed, speculating in a perfectly 
 audible way upon his business. 
 
 "Looks like a drummer." 
 
 "No, he ain't no drummer. See them Boston glasses?" 
 
 "That's so. Guess he's a teacher." 
 
 "Looks like a moneyed cuss." k 
 
 "Bos'n, I ffuess." J- 
 
 He knew the one who spoke last — Freeme Cole, a man who was 
 the fighting wonder of Howard's boyhood, now degenerated into 
 a stoop-shouldered, faded, garrulous, and quarrelsome old man. 
 Yet there was something epic in the old man's stories, something 
 enthralling in the dramatic power of recital. 
 
 Over by the blacksmith shop the usual game of "quaits" was in 
 progress, and the drug-clerk on the corner was chasing a crony with 
 the squirt-pump with which he was about to wash the windows. 
 A few teams stood ankle-deep in the mud, tied to the fantastically 
 gnawed pine pillars of the wooden awnings. A man on a load of hay . 
 was "jawing" with the attendant of the platform scales, who stood I 
 belowTp^^^d pencil in hand. 
 
 "Hit 'im! hit 'im! Jump off and knock 'im!" suggested a by- 
 stander, jovially. 
 
 Howard knew the voice. 
 
 "Talk's cheap. Takes money to buy whiskey," he said, when 
 the man on the load repeated his threat of getting off and whipping 
 the scales-man. 
 
 "You're William McTurg," Howard said, coming up to him. 
 
 "I am, sir," replied the soft-voiced giant, turning and looking 
 down on the stranger, with an amused twinkle in his deep brown 
 eyes. He stood as erect as an Indian, though his hair and beard were 
 white. 
 
 "I'm Howard McLane." 
 
 "Ye begin t' look it," said McTurg, removing his right hand 
 from his pocket. "How are ye?" 
 
48 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "I'm first-rate. How's mother and Grant?" 
 
 "Saw 'm ploughing corn as I came down. Guess he's all right. 
 Want a boost?" 
 
 "Well, yes. Are you down with a team?" 
 
 "Yep. 'Bout goin' home. Climb right in. That's my rig, right 
 there," nodding at a sleek bay colt hitched in a covered buggy. 
 "Heave y'r grip under the seat." 
 
 They climbed into the seat after William had lowered the 
 buggy-top and unhitched the horse from the post. The loafers were 
 mildly curious. Guessed Bill had got hooked onto by a lightnin'- 
 rod peddler, or somethin' o' that kind. 
 
 "Want to go by river, or 'round by the hills?" 
 
 "Hills, I guess." 
 
 The whole matter began to seem trivial, as if he had been away 
 only for a month or two. 
 
 William McTurg was a man little given to talk. Even the com- 
 ing back of a nephew did not cause any flow of questions or remi- 
 niscences. They rode in silence. He sat a little bent forward, the 
 lines held carelessly in his hands, his great lion-like head swaying 
 to and fro with the movement of the buggy. 
 
 As they passed familiar spots, the younger man broke the silence 
 with a question. 
 
 "That's old man McElvaine's place, ain't it?" 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "Old man living?" 
 
 "I guess he is. Husk more corn'n any man he c'n hire." 
 
 In the edge of the village they passed an open lot on the left, 
 marked with circus-rings of different eras. 
 
 "There's the old ball-ground. Do they have circuses on it just the 
 same as ever?" 
 
 "Just the same." 
 
 "What fun that field calls up! The games of ball we used to 
 have! Do you play yet?" 
 
 "Sometimes. Can't stoop as well as I used to." He smiled a little. 
 "Too much fat." 
 
 It all swept back upon Howard in a flood of names and faces 
 
Up the Coolly 49 
 
 and sights and sounds; something sweet and stirring somehow, 
 though it had little of aesthetic charms at the time. They were 
 passing along lanes now, between superb fields of corn, wherein 
 ploughmen were at worlc. Kingbirds flew from post to post ahead 
 of them; the insects called from the grass. The valley slowly out- 
 spread below them. The workmen in the fields were "turning out" 
 for the night. They all had a word of chaff with McTurg. 
 
 Over the western wall of the circling amphitheatre the sun was 
 setting. A few scattering clouds were drifting on the west wind, 
 their shadows sliding down the green and purpled slopes. The 
 dazzling sunlight flamed along the luscious velvety grass, and shot 
 amid the rounded, distant purple peaks, and streamed in bars of 
 gold and crimson across the blue mist of the narrower upper 
 Coollies. 
 
 The heart of the young man swelled with pleasure almost like 
 pain, and the eyes of the silent older man took on a far-off, dream- 
 ing look, as he gazed at the scene which had repeated itself a 
 thousand times in his life, but of whose beauty he never spoke. 
 
 Far down to the left was the break in the wall through which 
 the river ran on its way to join the Mississippi. They climbed 
 slowly among the hills, and the valley they had left grew still more 
 beautiful as the squalor of the little town was hid by the dusk of 
 distance. Both men were silent for a long time. Howard knew the 
 peculiarities of his companion too well to make any remarks or ask 
 any questions, and besides it was a genuine pleasure to ride with 
 one who understood that silence was the only speech amid such 
 splendors. 
 
 Once they passed a little brook singing in a mournfully sweet 
 way its eternal song over its pebbles. It called back to Howard the 
 days when he and Grant, his younger brother, had fished in this 
 little brook for trout, with trousers rolled above the knee and 
 wrecks of hats upon their heads. 
 
 "Any trout left ?" he asked. 
 
 "Not many. Little fellers." Finding the silence broken, William 
 asked the first question since he met Howard, "he' 's see : you're a 
 show feller now? B'long to a troupe?" 
 
50 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Yes, yes; I'm an actor." 
 
 "Pay much?" 
 
 "Pretty well." 
 
 That seemed to end William's curiosity about the matter. 
 
 "Ah, there's our old house, ain't it?" Howard broke out, point- 
 ing to one of the houses farther up the Coolly. "It'll be a surprise 
 to them, won't it?" 
 
 "Yep; only they don't live there." 
 
 "What! They don't!" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Who does?" 
 
 "Dutchman." 
 
 Howard was silent for some moments. "Who lives on the Dun- 
 lap place?" 
 
 " 'Nother Dutchman." 
 
 "Where's Grant living, anyhow?" 
 
 "Farther up the Coolly." 
 
 "Well, then, I'd better get out here, hadn't I?" 
 
 "Oh, I'll drive ye up." 
 
 "No, I'd rather walk." 
 
 The sun had set, and the Coolly was getting dusk when Howard 
 got out of McTurg's carriage and set off up the winding lane 
 toward his brother's house. He walked slowly to absorb the cool- 
 ness and fragrance and color of the hour. The katydids sang a 
 rhythmic song of welcome to him. Fireflies were in the grass. A 
 whippoorwill in the deep of the wood was calling weirdly, and an 
 occasional night-hawk, flying high, gave his grating shriek, or 
 hollow boom, suggestive and resounding. 
 I He had been wonderfully successful, and yet had carried into his 
 ] success as a dramatic author as well as actor a certain puritanism 
 that made him a paradox to his fellows. He was one of those actors 
 who are always in luck, and the best of it was he kept and made use 
 of his luck. Jovial as he appeared, he was inflexible as granite 
 against drink and tobacco. He retained through it all a certain 
 freshness of enjoyment that made him one of the best companions 
 in the profession; and now, as he walked on, the hour and the 
 
Up the Coolly 51 
 
 place appealed to him with great power. It seemed to sweep away 
 the life that came between. 
 
 How close it all was to him, after all! In his restless life, sur- 
 rounded by the glare of electric lights, painted canvas, hot colors, 
 creak of machinery, mock trees, stones, and brooks, he had not^ 
 lost, but gained, appreciation for the coolness, quiet, and low tones, 
 the shyness of the wood and field. 
 
 In the farmhouse ahead of him a light was shining as he peered 
 ahead, and his heart gave another painful movement. His brother 
 was awaiting him there, and his mother, whom he had not seen 
 for ten years and who had lost the power to write. And when 
 Grant wrote, which had been more and more seldom of late, his 
 letters had been cold and curt. 
 
 He began to feel that in the pleasure and excitement of his life 
 he had grown away from his mother and brother. Each summer he 
 had said, "Well, now, I'll go home this year, sure." But a new 
 play to be produced, or a new yachting trip, or a tour of Europe, 
 had put the home-coming off ; and now it was with a distinct con- 
 sciousness of neglect of duty that he walked up to the fence and 
 looked into the yard, where William had told him his brother 
 lived. 
 
 It was humble enough — a small white story-and-a-half struc- 
 ture, with a wing set in the midst of a few locust-trees; a small 
 drab-colored barn with a sagging ridge-pole; a barnyard full of 
 mud, in which a few cows were standing, fighting the flies and 
 waiting to be milked. An old man was pumping water at the well ; 
 the pigs were squealing from a pen near by; a child was crying. 
 
 Instantly the beautiful, peaceful valley was forgotten. A sick- i 
 ening chill struck into Howard's soul as he looked at it all. In the 
 dim light he could see a figure milking a cow. Leaving his valise ' 
 at the gate, he entered and walked up to the old man, who had ' 
 finished pumping and was about to go to feed the hogs. 
 
 "Good-evening," Howard began. "Does Mr. Grant McLane 
 live here?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, he does. He's right over there milkin'." 
 
 "I'll go over there an " 
 
52 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Don't b'lieve I would. It's darn muddy over there. It's been 
 turrible rainy. He'll be done in a minute, anyway." 
 
 "Very well; I'll wait." 
 
 As he waited, he could hear a woman's fretful voice and the 
 impatient jerk and jar of kitchen things, indicative of ill-temper 
 or worry. The longer he stood absorbing this farm-scene, with all 
 its sordidness, dullness, triviality, and its endless drudgeries, the 
 lower his heart sank. All the joy of the home-coming was gone, 
 when the figure arose from the cow and approached the gate, and 
 put the pail of milk down on the platform by the pump. 
 
 "Good-evening," said Howard, out of the dusk. 
 
 Grant stared a moment. "Good-evening." 
 
 Howard knew the voice, though it was older and deeper and 
 more sullen. "Don't you know me. Grant ? I am Howard." 
 
 The man approached him, gazing intently at his face. "You 
 are?" after a pause. "Well, I'm glad to see you, but I can't shake 
 hands. That damned cow had laid down in the mud." 
 
 They stood and looked at each other. Howard's cuffs, collar, and 
 shirt, alien in their elegance, showed through the dusk, and a 
 glint of light shot out from the jewel of his necktie, as the light 
 from the house caught it at the right angle. As they gazed in silence 
 at each other, Howard divined something of the hard, bitter feel- 
 ing that came into Grant's heart, as he stood there, ragged, ankle- 
 deep in muck, his sleeves rolled up, a shapeless old straw hat on 
 his head. 
 
 The gleam of Howard's white hands angered him. When he 
 spoke, it was in a hard, gruff tone, full of rebellion. 
 
 "Well, go in the house and set down. I'll be in soon's I strain 
 the milk and wash the dirt off my hands." 
 
 "But mother " 
 
 "She's 'round somewhere. Just knock on the door under the 
 porch round there." 
 
 Howard went slowly around the corner of the house, past a 
 vilely smelling rain-barrel, toward the west. A gray-haired woman 
 was sitting in a rocking-chair on the porch, her hands in her lap, 
 her eyes fixed on the faintly yellow sky, against which the hills 
 
Up the Coolly 53 
 
 stood, dim purple silhouettes, and on which the locust trees were 
 etched as fine as lace. There was sorrow, resignation, and a sort of 
 dumb despair in her attitude. 
 
 Howard stood, his throat swelling till it seemed as if he would 
 suffocate. This was his mother — the woman who bore him, the 
 being who had taken her life in her hand for him ; and he, in his 
 excited and pleasurable life, had neglected her! 
 
 He stepped into the faint light before her. She turned~and looked 
 at him without fear. "Mother!" he said. She uttered one little, 
 breathing, gasping cry, called his name, rose, and stood still. He 
 bounded up the steps, and took her in his arms. 
 
 "Mother! Dear old mother!" 
 
 In the silence, almost painful, which followed, an angry woman's 
 voice could be heard inside: "I don't care! I ain't goin' to wear 
 myself out fer him. He c'n eat out here with us, or else " 
 
 Mrs. McLane began speaking. "Oh, I've longed to see yeh, 
 Howard. I was afraid you wouldn't come till — too late." 
 
 "What do you mean, mother? Ain't you well?" 
 
 "I don't seem to be able to do much now 'cept sit around and 
 knit a little. I tried to pick some berries the other day, and I got 
 so dizzy I had to give it up." 
 
 "You mustn't work. You needn't work. Why didn't you write 
 to me how you were?" Howard asked, in an agony of remorse. 
 
 "Well, we felt as if you probably had all you could do to take 
 care of yourself. Are you married, Howard ?" she broke off to ask. 
 
 "No, mother ; and there ain't any excuse for me — not a bit," he 
 said, dropping back into her colloquialisms. "I'm ashamed when I 
 think of how long it's been since I saw you. I could have come." 
 
 "It don't matter now," she interrupted gently. "It's the way 
 things go. Our boys grow up and leave us." 
 
 "Well, come in to supper," said Grant's ungracious voice from 
 the doorway. "Come, mother." 
 
 Mrs. McLane moved with difficulty. Howard sprang to her aid, 
 and, leaning on his arm, she went through the little sitting room, 
 which was unlighted, out into the kitchen, where the supper table 
 stood near the cook-stove. 
 
54 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "How. — this is my wife," said Grant, in a cold, peculiar tone. 
 
 Howard bowed toward a remarkably handsome young woman, 
 on whose forehead was a scowl, which did not change as she looked 
 at him and the old lady. 
 
 "Set down anywhere," was the young woman's cordial invita- 
 tion. 
 
 Howard sat down next his mother, and facing the wife, who 
 had a small, fretful child in her arms. At Howard's left was the 
 old man, Lewis. The supper was spread upon a gay-colored oil- 
 cloth, and consisted of a pan of milk, set in the midst, with bowls 
 at each plate. Beside the pan was a dipper and a large plate of 
 bread, and at one end of the table was a dish of fine honey. 
 
 A boy of about fourteen leaned upon the table, his bent shoulders 
 making him look like an old man. His hickory shirt, like Grant's, 
 was still wet with sweat, and discolored here and there with grease, 
 or green from grass. His hair, freshly wet and combed, was 
 smoothed away from his face, and shone in the light of the kero- 
 sene lamp. As he ate, he stared at Howard, as though he would 
 make an inventory of each thread of the visitor's clothing. 
 
 "Did I look like that at his age ?" thought Howard. 
 
 "You see we live just about the same as ever," said Grant, as they 
 began eating, speaking with a grim, almost challenging, inflection. 
 
 The two brothers studied each other curiously, as they talked 
 of neighborhood scenes. Howard seemed incredibly elegant and 
 handsome to them all, with his rich, soft clothing, his spotless linen, 
 and his exquisite enunciation and ease of speech. He had always 
 been "smooth-spoken," and he had become "elegantly persuasive," 
 as his friends said of him, and it was a large factor in his success. 
 
 Every detail of the kitchen, the heat, the flies buzzing aloft, the 
 poor furniture, the dress of the people — all smote him like the lash 
 of a wire whip. His brother was a man of great character. He 
 could see that now. His deep-set, gray eyes and rugged face showed 
 at thirty a man of great natural ability. He had more of the Scotch 
 in his face than Howard, and he looked much older. 
 
 He was dressed, like the old man and the boy, in a checked shirt, 
 without vest. His suspenders, once gay-colored, had given most of 
 
Up the Coolly 55 
 
 their color to his shirt, and had marked irregular broad bands of 
 pink and brown and green over his shoulders. His hair was un- 
 combed, merely pushed away from his face. He wore a mustache 
 only, though his face was covered with a week's growth of beard. 
 His face was rather gaunt, and was brown as leather. 
 
 Howard could not eat much. He was disturbed by his mother's 
 strange silence and oppression, and sickened by the long-drawn 
 gasps with which the old man ate his bread and milk, and by the 
 way the boy ate. He had his knife gripped tightly in his fist, 
 knuckles up, and was scooping honey upon his bread. 
 
 The baby, having ceased to be afraid, was curious, gazing 
 silently at the stranger. 
 
 "Hello, little one! Come and see your uncle. Eh? Course 'e 
 will," cooed Howard, in the attempt to escape the depressing 
 atmosphere. The little one listened to his inflections as a kitten 
 does, and at last lifted its arms in sign of surrender. 
 
 The mother's face cleared up a little. "I declare, she wants to 
 go to you." 
 
 "Course she does. Dogs and kittens always come to me when I 
 call 'em. Why shouldn't my own niece come?" 
 
 He took the little one and began walking up and down the 
 kitchen with her, while she pulled at his beard and nose. "I ought 
 to have you, my lady, in my new comedy. You'd bring down the 
 house." 
 
 "You don't mean to say you put babies on the stage, Howard ?" 
 said his mother in surprise. 
 
 "Oh, yes. Domestic comedy must have a baby these days." 
 
 "Well, that's another way of makin' a livin', sure," said Grant. 
 The baby had cleared the atmosphere a little. "I s'pose you fellers 
 make a pile of money." 
 
 "Sometimes we make a thousand a week; oftener we don't*" 
 
 "A thousand dollars!" They all stared. 
 
 "A thousand dollars sometimes, and then lose it all the next 
 week in another town. The dramatic business is a good deal like 
 gambling — ^you take your chances." 
 
56 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "I wish you weren't in it, Howard. I don't like to have my 
 
 son 
 
 "I wish I was in somethin' that paid better than farmin'. Any- 
 thing under God's heavens is better 'n farmin'," said Grant. 
 
 "No, I ain't laid up much," Howard went on, as if explaining 
 why he hadn't helped them. "Costs me a good deal to live, and I 
 need about ten thousand dollars leeway to work on. I've made a 
 good living, but I — I ain't made any money." 
 
 Grant looked at him, darkly meditative. 
 
 Howard went on: "How'd ye come to sell the old farm? I was 
 in hopes " 
 
 "How'd we come to sell it?" said Grant with terrible bitterness. 
 "We had something on it that didn't leave anything to sell. You 
 probably don't remember anything about it, but there was a mort- 
 gage on it that eat us up in just four years by the almanac. 'Most 
 killed mother to leave it. We wrote to you for money, but I don't 
 suppose you remember that." 
 
 "No, you didn't." 
 
 "Yes, I did." 
 
 "When was it? I don't — ^why, it's — I never received it. It must 
 have been that summer I went with Bob Manning to Europe." 
 Howard put the baby down and faced his brother. "Why, Grant, 
 you didn't think I refused to help ?" 
 
 "Well, it looked that way. We never heard a word from yeh, 
 all summer, and when y' did write, it was all about yerself 'n plays 
 'n things we didn't know anything about. I swore to God I'd never 
 write to you again, and I won't." 
 
 "But, good heavens ! I never got it." 
 
 "Suppose you didn't. You might have known we were poor as 
 Job's off-ox. Everybody is that earns a living. We fellers on the 
 farm have to earn a livin' for ourselves and you fellers that don't 
 work. I don't blame you. I'd do it if I could." 
 
 "Grant, don't talk so ! Howard didn't realize " 
 
 "I tell yeh I don't blame him ! Only I don't want him to come 
 the brotherly business over me, after livin' as he has — that's all." 
 There was a bitter accusation in the man's voice. 
 
Up the Coolly 57 
 
 Howard leaped to his feet, his face twitching. 
 
 "By God, I'll go back to-morrow morning!" he threatened. 
 
 "Go, an' be damned ! I don't care what yeh do," Grant growled, 
 rising and going out. 
 
 "Boys," called the mother, piteously, "it's terrible to see you 
 quarrel." 
 
 "But I'm not to blame, mother," cried Howard, in a sickness 
 that made him white as chalk. "The man is a savage. I came home 
 to help you all, not to quarrel." 
 
 "Grant's got one o' his fits on," said the young wife, speaking 
 for the first time. "Don't pay any attention to him. He'll be all 
 right in the morning." 
 
 "If it wasn't for you, mother, I'd leave now, and never see that 
 savage again." 
 
 He lashed himself up and down in the room, in horrible disgust 
 and hate of his brother and of this home in his heart. He remem- 
 bered his tender anticipations of the home-coming with a kind of 
 self-pity and disgust. This was his greeting ! 
 
 He went to bed, to toss about on the hard, straw-filled mattress 
 in the sti ^y little b est room. Tossing, writhing under the bludgeon- 
 ing of his brother's accusmg inflections, a dozen times he said, with 
 a half-articulate snarl: 
 
 "He can go to hell! I'll not try to do anything more for him. I 
 don't care if he is my brother; he has no right to jump on me like 
 that. On the night of my return, too. My God! he is a brute, a 
 fool!" p-^ 
 
 He thought of the presents in his trunk and valise, which he 
 couldn't show to him that night after what had been said. He had 
 intended to have such a happy evening of it, such a tender reunion ! 
 It was to be so bright and cheery ! 
 
 In the midst of his cursings — his hot indignation — ^would come 
 visions of himself in his own modest rooms. He seemed to be 
 yawning and stretching in his beautiful bed, the sun shining in, 
 his books, foils, pictures, around him to say good-morning and 
 tempt him to rise, while the squat little clock on the mantel struck 
 eleven warningly. 
 
58 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 He could see the olive walls, the unique copper-and-crimson 
 arabesque frieze (his own selection), and the delicate draperies; an 
 open grate full of glowing coals, to temper the sea-winds; and in 
 the midst of it, between a landscape by Enneking and an Indian 
 in a canoe in a canon, by Brush, he saw a sombre landscape by a 
 master greater than Millet, a melancholy subject, treated with 
 pitiless fidelity. 
 
 A farm in the valley! Over the mountains swept jagged, gray, 
 angry, sprawling clouds, sending a freezing, thin drizzle of rain, 
 as they passed, upon a man following a plough. The horses had a 
 sullen and weary look, and their manes and tails streamed sidewise 
 in the blast. The ploughman, clad in a ragged gray coat, with 
 uncouth, muddy boots upon his feet, walked with his head inclined 
 toward the sleet, to shield his face from the cold and sting of it. 
 The soil rolled away black and sticky and with a dull sheen upon 
 it. Near by, a boy with tears on his cheeks was watching cattle ; a 
 dog seated near, his back to the gale. 
 
 As he looked at this picture, his heart softened. He looked down 
 at the sleeve of his soft and fleecy night-shirt, at his white, rounded 
 arm, muscular, yet fine as a woman's, and when he looked for the 
 picture it was gone. Then came again the assertive odor of stag- 
 nant air, laden with camphor ; he felt the springless bed under him, 
 and caught dimly a few soap-advertising lithographs on the walls. 
 He thought of his brother, in his still more inhospitable bedroom, 
 disturbed by the child, condemned to rise at five o'clock and begin 
 another day's pitiless labor. His heart shrank and quivered, and 
 the tears started to his eyes. 
 •""I forgive him, poor fellow 1 He's not to blame." 
 
 n 
 
 He woke, however, with a dull, languid pulse, and an oppres- 
 sive melancholy on his heart. He looked around the little room, 
 clean enough, but oh, how poor! how barren! Cold plaster walls, 
 a cheap wash-stand, a wash-set of three pieces, with a blue band 
 around each; the windows rectangular, and fitted with fantastic 
 green shades. 
 
Up the Coolly 59 
 
 Outside he could hear the bees humming. Chickens were mer- 
 rily moving about. Cow-bells far up the road were sounding irreg- 
 ularly. A jay came by and yelled an insolent reveille, and Howard 
 sat up. He could hear nothing in the house but the rattle of pans 
 on the back side of the kitchen. He looked at his watch, which 
 indicated half-past seven. Grant was already in the field, after 
 milking, currying the horses, and eating breakfast — ^had been at 
 work two hours and a half. 
 
 He dressed himself hurriedly, in a neglige shirt, with a Windsor; 
 scarf, light-colored, serviceable trousers with a belt, russet shoes, \ 
 and a tennis hat — a knockabout costume, he considered. His mother, 
 good soul, thought it a special suit put on for her benefit, and ad- 
 mired it through her glasses. 
 
 He kissed her with a bright smile, nodded at Laura, the young 
 wife, and tossed the baby, all in a breath, and with the manner, as 
 he himself saw, of the returned captain in the war-dramas of the 
 day. 
 
 "Been to breakfast?" He frowned reproachfully. "Why didn't 
 you call me? I wanted to get up, just as I used to, at sunrise." 
 
 "We thought you was tired, and so we didn't " 
 
 "Tired ! Just wait till you see me help Grant pitch hay or some- 
 thing. Hasn't finished his haying yet, has he ?" 
 
 "No, I guess not. He will to-day if it don't rain again." 
 
 "Well, breakfast is all ready — Howard," said Laura, hesitat- 
 ing a little on his name. 
 
 "Good! I am ready for it. Bacon and eggs, as I'm a jay! Just 
 what I was wanting. I was saying to myself: 'Now if they'll only 
 get bacon and eggs and hot biscuits and honey — ' Oh, say, mother, 
 I heard the bees humming this morning; same noise they used to 
 make when I was a boy, exactly. Must be the same bees, — Hey, 
 you young rascal! come here and have some breakfast with your 
 uncle." 
 
 "I never saw her take to any one so quick," Laura said, empha- 
 sizing the baby's sex. She had on a clean calico dress and a gingham 
 apron, and she looked strong and fresh and handsome. Her head 
 was intellectual, her eyes full of power. She seemed anxious to re- 
 
6o Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 move the impression of her unpleasant looks and words the night 
 before. Indeed it would have been hard to resist Howard's sunny 
 good-nature. 
 
 The baby laughed and crowed. The old mother could not take 
 her dim eyes off the face of her son, but sat smiling at him as he 
 ate and rattled on. When he rose from the table at last, after 
 eating heartily and praising it all, he said, with a smile : 
 
 "Well, now I'll just telephone down to the express and have 
 my trunk brought up. I've got a few little things in there you'll 
 enjoy seeing. But this fellow," indicating the baby, "I didn't take 
 him into account. But never mind: Uncle How. '11 make that all 
 right." 
 
 "You ain't going to lay it up agin Grant, be you, my son?" Mrs. 
 McLane faltered, as they went out into the best room. 
 
 "Of course not! He didn't mean it. Now, can't you send word 
 down and have my trunk brought up? Or shall I have to walk 
 down?" 
 
 "I guess I'll see somebody goin' down," said Laura. 
 
 "All right. Now for the hay-field," he smiled, and went out into 
 the glorious morning. 
 
 The circling hills were the same, yet not the same as at night, 
 a cooler, tenderer, more subdued cloak of color lay upon them. 
 Far down the valley a cool, deep, impalpable, blue mist hung, be- 
 neath which one divined the river ran, under its elms and bass- 
 woods and wild grapevines. On the shaven slopes of the hill cattle 
 and sheep were feeding, their cries and bells coming to the ear 
 with a sweet suggestiveness. There was something immemorial in 
 the sunny slopes dotted with red and brown and gray cattle. 
 
 Walking toward the haymakers, Howard felt a twinge of pain 
 and distrust. Would Grant ignore it all and smile 
 
 He stopped short. He had not seen Grant smile in so long — ^he 
 couldn't quite see him smiling. He had been cold and bitter for 
 years. When he came up to them. Grant was pitching on ; the old 
 man was loading, and the boy was raking after. 
 
 "Good-morning," Howard cried cheerily; the old man nodded, 
 the boy stared. Grant growled something, without looking ud. 
 
Up the Coolly 6i 
 
 These "finical" things of saying good-morning and good-night are 
 not much practised in such homes as Grant McLane's. 
 
 "Need some help? I'm ready to take a hand. Got on my regi- 
 mentals this morning." 
 
 Grant looked at him a moment. "You look it." 
 
 Howard smiled. "Gimme a hold on that fork, and I'll show you. 
 I'm not so soft as I look, now you bet." 
 
 He laid hold upon the fork in Grant's hands, who released it 
 sullenly and stood back sneering. Howard stuck the fork into the 
 pile in the old way, threw his left hand to the end of the polished 
 handle, brought it down into the hollow of his thigh, and laid out 
 his strength till the handle bent like a bow. "Oop she rises!" he 
 called laughingly, as the huge pile began slowly to rise, and finally 
 rolled upon the high load. 
 
 "Oh, I ain't forgot how to do it," he laughed, as he looked 
 around at the boy, who was eyeing the tennis suit with a devour- 
 ing gaze. 
 
 Grant was studying him, too, but not in admiration. 
 
 "I shouldn't say you had," said the old man, tugging at the 
 forkful. 
 
 "Mighty funny to come out here and do a little of this. But if 
 you had to come here and do it all the while, you wouldn't look so 
 white and soft in the hands," Grant said, as they moved on to an- 
 other pile. "Give me that fork. You'll be spoiling your fine clothes." 
 
 "Oh, these don't matter. They're made for this kind of thing." 
 
 "Oh, are they? I guess I'll dress in that kind of a rig. What did 
 that shirt cost ? I need one." 
 
 "Six dollars a pair ; but then it's old." 
 
 "And them pants," he pursued ; "they cost six dollars, too, didn't 
 they?" 
 
 Howard's face darkened. He saw his brother's purpose. He re- 
 sented it. "They cost fifteen dollars, if you want to know, and the 
 shoes cost six-fifty. This ring on my cravat cost sixty dollars, and 
 the suit I had on last night cost eighty-five. My suits are made by 
 Breckstein, on Fifth Avenue, if you want to patronize him," he 
 ended brutally, spurred on by the sneer in his brother's eyes. "I'll 
 introduce you." 
 
62 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Good idea," said Grant, with a forced, mocking smile. 
 
 "I need just such a get-up for haying and corn-ploughing. Singu- 
 lar I never thought of it. Now my pants cost eighty-five cents, 
 s'spenders fifteen, hat twenty, shoes one-fifty; stockin's I don't 
 bother about." 
 
 He had his brother at a disadvantage, and he grew fluent and 
 caustic as he went on, almost changing places with Howard, who 
 took the rake out of the boy's hand, and followed, raking up the 
 scatterings. 
 
 "Singular we fellers here are discontented and mulish, ain't it? 
 Singular we don't believe your letters when you write, sayin', 'I 
 just about make a live of it'? Singular we think the country's goin' 
 to hell, we fellers, in a two-dollar suit, wadin' around in the mud 
 or sweatin' around in the hay-field, while you fellers lay around 
 New York and smoke and wear good clothes and toady to mil- 
 lionaires ?" 
 
 Howard threw down the rake and folded his arms. "My God! 
 you're enough to make a man forget the same mother bore us !" 
 
 "I guess it wouldn't take much to make you forget that. You 
 ain't put much thought on me nor her for ten years." 
 
 The old man cackled, the boy grinned, and Howard, sick and 
 weak with anger and sorrow, turned away and walked down to- 
 ward the brook. He had tried once more to get near his brother, 
 and had failed. Oh, God ! how miserably, pitiably ! The hot blood 
 gushed all over him as he thought of the shame and disgrace of it. 
 
 He, a man associating with poets, artists, sought after by bril- 
 liant women, accustomed to deference even from such people, to 
 be sneered at, outfaced, shamed, shoved aside, by a man in a stained 
 hickory shirt and patched overalls, and that man his brother ! He 
 lay down on the bright grass, with the sheep all around him, and 
 writhed and groaned with the agony and despair of it. 
 
 And worst of all, underneath it was a consciousness that Grant 
 was right in distrusting him. He had neglected him; he had said, 
 "I guess they're getting along all right." He had put them behind 
 him when the invitation to spend summer on the Mediterranean 
 or in the Adirondacks, came. 
 
Up the Coolly 63 
 
 "What can I do ? What can I do ?" he groaned. 
 
 The sheep nibbled the grass near him, the jays called pertly, 
 "Shame, shame," a quail piped somewhere on the hillside, and the 
 brook sung a soft, soothing melody that took away at last the sharp 
 edge of his pain, and he sat up and gazed down the valley, bright 
 with the sun and apparently filled with happy and prosperous 
 people. 
 
 Suddenly a thought seized him. He stood up so suddenly that 
 the sheep fled in affright. He leaped the brook, crossed the flat, and 
 began searching in the bushes on the hillside. "Hurrah!" he said, 
 with a smile. 
 
 He had found an old road which he used to travel when a boy 
 — a road that skirted the edge of the valley, now grown up to 
 brush, but still passable for footmen. As he ran lightly along down 
 the beautiful path, under oaks and hickories, past masses of poison- 
 ivy, under hanging grapevines, through clumps of splendid hazel- 
 nut bushes loaded with great sticky, rough, green burs, his heart 
 threw off part of its load. 
 
 How it all came back to him ! How many days, when the autumn 
 sun burned the frost of the bushes, had he gathered hazel-nuts here 
 with his boy and girl friends — Hugh and Shelley McTurg, Rome 
 Sawyer, Orrin Mcllvaine, and the rest ! What had become of them 
 all? How he had forgotten them! 
 
 This thought stopped him again, and he fell into a deep muse, 
 leaning against an oak tree, and gazing into the vast fleckless space 
 above. The thrilling, inscrutable mystery of life fell upon him like 
 a blinding light. Why was he living in the crush and thunder and 
 mental unrest of a great city, while his companions, seemingly his 
 equals in powers, were milking cows, making butter, and growing 
 corn and wheat in the silence and drear monotony of the farm ? 
 
 His boyish sweethearts! their names came back to his ear now, 
 with a dull, sweet sound as of faint bells. He saw their faces, their 
 pink sunbonnets tipped back upon their necks, their brown ankles 
 flying with the swift action of the scurrying partridge. His eyes 
 softened, he took off his hat. The sound of the wind and the leaves 
 moved him almost to tears. 
 
64 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 A woodpecker gave a shrill, high-keyed, sustained cry "Ki, ki, 
 ki!" and he started from his revery, the dapples of the sun and 
 shade falling upon his lithe figure as he hurried on down the path. 
 
 He came at last to a field of corn that ran to the very wall of a 
 large weather-beaten house, the sight of which made his breathing 
 quicker. It was the place where he was born. The mystery of his 
 life began there. In the branches of those poplar and hickory trees 
 he had swung and sung in the rushing breeze, fearless as a squirrel. 
 Here was the brook where, like a larger kildee, he with Grant had 
 waded after crawfish, or had stolen upon some wary trout, rough- 
 cut pole in hand. 
 
 Seeing someone in the garden, he went down along the corn-row 
 through the rustling ranks of green leaves. An old woman was 
 picking berries, a squat and shapeless figure. 
 
 "Good-morning," he called cheerily. 
 
 "Morgen," she said, looking up at him with a startled and very 
 red face. She was German in every line of her body. 
 
 "Ich bin Herr McLane," he said, after a pause. 
 
 "So?" she replied, with a questioning inflection. 
 
 "Yah; ich bin Herr Grant's Bruder." 
 
 "Ach, so!" she said, with a downward inflection. "Ich no spick 
 Inglish. No spick Inglis." 
 
 "Ich bin durstig," he said. Leaving her pans, she went with him 
 to the house, which was what he really wanted to see. 
 
 "Ich bin hier geboren." 
 
 "Ach, so!" She recognized the little bit of sentiment, and said 
 some sentences in German whose general meaning was sympathy. 
 She took him to the cool cellar where the spring had been trained 
 to run into a tank containing pans of cream and milk; she gave 
 him a cool draught from a large tin cup, and at his request went 
 with him upstairs. The house w^as the same, but somehow seemed 
 cold and empty. It was clean and sweet, but it showed so little evi- 
 dence of being lived in. The old part, which was built of logs, was 
 used as best room, and modelled after the best rooms of the neigh- 
 boring "Yankee" homes, only it was emptier, without the cabinet 
 organ and the rag-carpet and the chromos. 
 
Up the Coolly 65 
 
 The old fireplace was bricked up and plastered — the fireplace 
 beside which, in the far-off days, he had lain on winter nights, to 
 hear his uncles tell tales of hunting, or to hear them play the violin, 
 great dreaming giants that they were. 
 
 The old woman went out and left him sitting there, the centre 
 of a swarm of memories, coming and going like so many ghostly 
 birds and butterflies. 
 
 A curious heartache and listlessness, a nerveless mood came on i 
 him. What was it worth, anyhow — success? Struggle, strife, tram- 
 pling on some one else. His play crowding out some other poor 
 fellow's hope. The hawk eats the partridge, the partridge eats the 
 flies and bugs, the bugs eat each other and the hawk, when he in his 
 turn is shot by man. So in the world of business, the life of one 
 man seemed to him to be drawn from the life of another man, each 
 success to spring from other failures. 
 
 He was like a man from whom all motives had been withdrawn. 
 He was sick, sick to the heart. Oh, to be a boy again ! An ignorant 
 baby, pleased with a block and strrng, with no knowledge and no 1 
 care of the great unknown ! To lay his head again on his mother's 
 bosom and rest ! To watch the flames on the hearth ! 
 
 Why not ? Was not that the very thing to do ? To buy back the 
 old farm? It would cripple him a little for the next season, but he 
 could do it. Think of it ! To see his mother back in the old home, 
 with the fireplace restored, the old furniture in the sitting room 
 around her, and fine new things in the parlor! 
 
 His spirits rose again. Grant couldn't stand out when he brought 
 to him a deed of the farm. Surely his debt would be cancelled when 
 he had seen them all back in the wide old kitchen. He began to 
 plan and to dream. He went to the windows, and looked out on 
 the yard to see how much it had changed. 
 
 He'd build a new barn and buy them a new carriage. His heart 
 glowed again, and his lips softened into their usual feminine grace 
 — lips a little full and falling easily into curves. 
 
 The old German woman came in at length, bringing some cakes 
 and a bowl of milk, smiling broadly and hospitably as she waddled 
 forward. 
 
66 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Acht! Goot!" he said, smacking his lips over the pleasant 
 draught. 
 
 "Wo ist ihre goot mann?" he inquired, ready for business. 
 
 Ill 
 
 When Grant came in at noon Mrs. McLane met him at the 
 door with a tender smile on her face. 
 
 "Where's Howard, Grant?" 
 
 "I don't know," he replied, iii a tone that implied "I don't care." 
 
 The dim eyes clouded with quick tears. 
 
 "Ain't you seen him ?" 
 
 "Not since nine o'clock," 
 
 "Where do you think he is?" 
 
 "I tell yeh I don't know. He'll take care of himself; don't 
 worry." 
 
 He flung oS his hat and plunged into the wash-basin. His shirt 
 was wet with sweat and covered with dust of the hay and frag- 
 ments of leaves. He splashed his burning face with the water, pay- 
 ing no further attention to his mother. She spoke again, very gently, 
 in reproof: 
 
 "Grant, why do you stand out against Howard so?" 
 
 "I don't stand out against him," he replied harshly, pausing 
 with the towel in his hands. His eyes were hard and piercing. "But 
 if he expects me to gush over his coming back, he's fooled, that's 
 all. He's left us to paddle our own canoe all this while, and, so far 
 as I'm concerned, he can leave us alone hereafter. He looked out 
 for his precious hide mighty well, and now he comes back here to 
 play big gun and pat us on the head. I don't propose to let him 
 come that over me." 
 
 Mrs. McLane knew too well the temper of her son to say any 
 more, but she inquired about Howard of the old hired man. 
 
 "He went off down the valley. He 'n' Grant had s'm words, and 
 he pulled out down toward the old farm. That's the last I see 
 of 'im." 
 
 Laura took Howard's part at the table. "Pity you can't be de- 
 
up the Coolly 67 
 
 cent," she said, brutally direct as usual. "You treat Howard as if 
 he was a — a — I do' know what." 
 
 "Will you let me alone?" 
 
 "No, I won't. If you think I'm going to set by an' agree to your 
 buUyraggin' him, you're mistaken. It's a shame ! You're mad 'cause 
 he's succeeded and you hain't. He ain't _to_blame„fQr_ bis brains.- If 
 you and I'd had any, we'd 'a' succeeded too. It ain't our fault, andy 
 it ain't his; so what's the use?" 
 
 A look came into Grant's face which the wife knew meant bit- 
 ter and terrible silence. He ate his dinner without another word. 
 
 It was beginning to cloud up. A thin, whitish, all-pervasive vapor 
 which meant rain was dimming the sky, and Grant forced his 
 hands to their utmost during the afternoon, in order to get most 
 of the down hay in before the rain came. He was pitching from the 
 load into the barn when Howard came by, just before one o'clock. 
 
 It was windless there. The sun fell through the white mist with 
 undiminished fury, and the fragrant hay sent up a breath that was 
 hot as an oven-draught. Grant was a powerful man, and there was 
 something majestic in his action as he rolled the huge flakes of hay 
 through the door. The sweat poured from his face like rain, and 
 he was forced to draw his drenched sleeve across his face to clear 
 away the blinding sweat that poured into his eyes. 
 
 Howard stood and looked at him in silence, remembering how 
 often he had worked there in that furnaceheat, his muscles quiver- 
 ing, cold chills running over his flesh, red shadows dancing before 
 his eyes. 
 
 His mother met him at the door, anxiously, but smiled as she 
 saw his pleasant face and cheerful eyes. 
 
 "You're a little late, m' son." 
 
 Howard spent most of the afternoon sitting with his mother on 
 the porch, or under the trees, lying sprawled out like a boy, resting 
 at times with sweet forgetfulness of the whole world, but feeling 
 a dull pain whenever he remembered the stern, silent man pitching 
 hay in the hot sun on the torrid side of the barn. 
 
 His mother did not say anything about the quarrel; she feared 
 to reopen it. She talked mainly of old times in a gentle monotone 
 of reminiscence, while he listened, looking up into her patient face. 
 
68 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 The heat slowly lessened as the sun sank down toward the dun 
 clouds rising like a more distant and majestic line of mountains 
 beyond the western hills. The sound of cow-bells came irregularly 
 to the ear, and the voices and sounds of the haying-fields had a 
 jocund, pleasant sound to the ear of the city-dweller. 
 
 He was very tender. Everything conspired to make him simple, 
 direct, and honest. 
 
 "Mother, if you'll only forgive me for staying away so long, I'll 
 surely come to see you every summer." 
 
 She had nothing to forgive. She was so glad to have him there 
 at her feet — ^her great, handsome, successful boy! She could only 
 love him and enjoy him every moment of the precious days. If 
 Grant would only reconcile himself to Howard! That was the 
 great thorn in her flesh. 
 
 Howard told her how he had succeeded. 
 
 "It was luck, mother. First I met Cook, and he introduced me to 
 Jake Saulsman of Chicago. Jake asked me to go to New York with 
 him, and — I don't know why — took a fancy to me some way. He 
 introduced me to a lot of the fellows in New York, and they all 
 helped me along. I did nothing to merit it. Everybody helps me. 
 Anybody can succeed in that way." 
 
 The doting mother thought it not at all strange that they all 
 helped him. 
 
 At the supper table Grant was gloomily silent, ignoring How- 
 ard completely. Mrs. McLane sat and grieved silently, not daring 
 to say a word in protest. Laura and the baby tried to amuse How- 
 ard, and under cover of their talk the meal was eaten. 
 
 The boy fascinated Howard. He "sawed wood" with a rapidity 
 and uninterruptedness which gave alarm. He had the air of coaling 
 up for a long voyage. 
 
 "At that age," Howard thought, "I must have gripped my knife 
 in my right hand so, and poured my tea into my saucer so. I must 
 have buttered and bit into a huge slice of bread just so, and chewed 
 at it with a smacking sound in just that way. I must have gone to 
 the length of scooping up honey with my knife-blade." 
 
 The sky was magically beautiful over all this squalor and toil 
 
Up the Coolly 69 
 
 and bitterness, from five till seven — a moving hour. Again the 
 falling sun streamed in broad banners across the valleys ; again the 
 blue mist lay far down the Coolly over the river ; the cattle called 
 from the hills in the moistening, sonorous air; the bells came in a 
 pleasant tangle of sound ; the air pulsed with the deepening chorus 
 of katydids and other nocturnal singers. 
 
 Sweet and deep as the very springs of his life was all this to the 
 soul of the elder brother ; but in the midst of it, the younger man, 
 in ill-smelling clothes and great boots that chafed his feet, went out 
 to milk the cows, — on whose legs the flies and mosquitoes swarmed, 
 bloated with blood, to — sit by the hot side of a cow and be lashed 
 with her tail as she tried frantically to keep the savage insects from 
 eating her raw. 
 
 "The poet who writes of milking the cows does it from the 
 hammock, looking on," Howard soliloquized, as he watched the old 
 man Lewis racing around the filthy yard after one of the young 
 heifers that had kicked over the pail in her agony with the flies, and 
 was unwilling to stand still and be eaten alive. 
 
 "So, sol you beast!" roared the old man, as he finally cornered 
 the shrinking, nearly frantic creature. 
 
 "Don't you want to look at the garden?" asked Mrs. McLane 
 of Howard ; and they went out among the vegetables and berries. 
 
 The bees were coming home heavily laden and crawling slowly 
 into the hives. The level, red light streamed through the trees, 
 blazed along the grass, and lighted a few old-fashioned flowers into 
 red and gold flame. It was beautiful, and Howard looked at it 
 through his half-shut eyes as the painters do, and turned away with 
 a sigh at the sound of blows where the wet and grimy men were 
 assailing the frantic cows. 
 
 "There's Wesley with your trunk," Mrs. McLane said, recall- 
 ing him to himself. 
 
 Wesley helped him carry the trunk in, and waved off thanks. 
 
 "Oh, that's all right," he said ; and Howard knew the Western 
 man too well to press the matter of pay. 
 
 As he went in an hour later and stood by the trunk, the dull 
 
70 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 ache came back to his heart. How he had failed ! It seemed like a 
 bitter mockery now to show his gifts. 
 
 Grant had come in from his work, and with his feet released 
 from his chafing boots, in his wet shirt and milk-splashed overalls, 
 sat at the kitchen table reading a newspaper which he held close to 
 a small kerosene lamp. He paid no attention to any one. His atti- 
 tude, curiously like his father's, was perfectly definite to Howard, 
 lilt meant that from that time forward there were to be no words 
 of any sort between them. It meant that they were no longer 
 brothers, not even acquaintances. "How inexorable that face!" 
 thought Howard. 
 
 He turned sick with disgust and despair, and would have closed 
 his trunk without showing any of the presents, only for the childish 
 expectancy of his mother and Laura. 
 
 "Here's something for you, mother," he said, assuming a cheer- 
 ful voice, as he took a fold of fine silk from the trunk and held it 
 up. "All the way from Paris." He laid it on his mother's lap and 
 stooped and kissed her, and then turned hastily away to hide the 
 tears that came to his own eyes as he saw her keen pleasure. 
 
 "And here's a parasol for Laura. I don't know how I came to 
 have that in here. And here's General Grant's autobiography for 
 his namesake," he said, with an effort at carelessness, and waited 
 to hear Grant rise. 
 
 "Grant, won't you come in?" asked his mother, quaveringly. 
 
 Grant did not reply nor move. Laura took the handsome vol- 
 umes out and laid them beside him on the table. He simply pushed 
 them one side and went on with his reading. 
 
 Again that horrible anger swept hot as flame over Howard. He 
 could have cursed him. His hands shook as he handed out other 
 presents to his mother and Laura and the baby. He tried to joke. 
 
 "I didn't know how old the baby was, so she'll have to grow to 
 some of these things." 
 
 But the pleasure was all gone for him and for the rest. His heart 
 swelled almost to a feeling of pain as he looked at his mother. 
 There she sat with the presents in her lap. The shining silk came 
 too late for her. It threw into appalling relief her age, her poverty. 
 
Up the Coolly 71 
 
 her work-weary frame. "My God!" he almost cried aloud, "how 
 little it would have taken to lighten her life !" 
 
 Upon this moment, when it seemed as if he could endure no 
 more, came the smooth voice of William McTurg : 
 
 "Hello, folkses!" 
 
 "Hello, Uncle Bill! Come in." 
 
 "That's what we came for," laughed a woman's voice. 
 
 "Is that you. Rose ?" asked Laura. 
 
 "It's me — Rose," replied the laughing girl, as she bounced into 
 the room and greeted everybody in a breathless sort of way. 
 
 "You don't mean little Rosy?" 
 
 "Big Rosy now," said William. 
 
 Howard looked at the handsome girl and smiled, saying in a 
 nasal sort of tone, "Wal, wal! Rosy, how you've growed since I 
 saw yeh !" 
 
 "Oh, look at all this purple and fine linen ! Am I left out ?" 
 
 Rose was a large girl of twenty-five or thereabouts, and was 
 called an old maid. She radiated good-nature from every line of 
 her buxom self. Her black eyes were full of drollery, and she was 
 on the best of terms with Howard at once. She had been a teacher, 
 but that did not prevent her from assuming a homely directness of 
 speech. Of course they talked about old friends. 
 
 "Where's Rachel?" Howard inquired. Her smile faded away. 
 
 "Shellie married Orrin Mcllvaine. They're 'way out in Dakota. 
 Shellie's havin' a hard row of stumps." 
 
 There was a little silence. 
 
 "And Tommy?" 
 
 "Gone West. Most all the boys have gone West. That's the 
 reason there's so many old maids." 
 
 "You don't mean to say " 
 
 "I don't need to say — I'm an old maid. Lots of the girls are. It 
 don't pay to marry these days. Are you married ?" 
 
 "Not yet." His eyes lighted up again in a humorous way. 
 
 "Not yet ! That's good ! That's the way old maids all talk." 
 
 "You don't mean to tell me that no young fellow comes prowling 
 around " 
 
72 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Oh, a young Dutchman or Norwegian once in a while. Nobody 
 that counts. Fact is, we're getting like Boston — four women to one 
 man; and when you consider that we're getting more particular 
 each year, the outlook is — ^well, it's dreadful !" 
 
 "It certainly is." 
 
 "Marriage is a failure these days for most of us. We can't live 
 on a farm, and can't get a living in the city, and there we are." She 
 laid her hand on his arm. "I declare, Howard, you're the same 
 boy you used to be. I ain't a bit afraid of you, for all your success." 
 
 "And you're the same girl ? No, I can't say that. It seems to me 
 you've grown more than I have — I don't mean physically, I mean 
 mentally," he explained, as he saw her smile in the defensive way 
 a fleshy girl has, alert to ward off a joke. 
 
 They were in the midst of talk, Howard telling one of his funny 
 stories, when a wagon clattered up to the door, and merry voices 
 called loudly: 
 
 "Whoa, there, Sampson!" 
 
 "Hullo, the house!" 
 
 Rose looked at her father with a smile in her black eyes exactly 
 like his. They went to the door. 
 
 "Hullo! What's wanted?" 
 
 "Grant McLane live here ?" 
 
 "Yup. Right here." 
 
 A moment later there came a laughing, chattering squad of 
 women to the door. Mrs. McLane and Laura stared at each other 
 In amazement. Grant went outdoors. 
 
 Rose stood at the door as if she were hostess. 
 
 "Come in, Nettie. Glad to see yeh — glad to see yeh ! Mrs. Mc- 
 Ilvaine, come right in! Take a seat. Make yerself to home, do\ 
 And Mrs. Peavey! Wal, I never! This must be a surprise party. 
 Wal, I swan! How many more o' ye air they?" 
 
 All was confusion, merriment, hand-shakings as Rose introduced 
 them in her roguish way. 
 
 "Folks, this is Mr. Howard McLane of New York. He's an 
 actor, but it hain't spoiled him a bit as / can see. How., this is Net- 
 tie McIIvaine — ^Wilson that was." 
 
Up the Coolly 73 
 
 Howard shook hands with Nettie, a tall, plain girl with prom- 
 inent teeth. 
 
 "This is Ma Mcllvaine." 
 
 "She looks just the same," said Howard, shaking her hand and 
 feeling how hard and work-worn it was. 
 
 And so amid bustle, chatter, and invitations "to lay off y'r 
 things jan' stay awhile," the women got disposed about the room at \ 
 last. Those that had rocking-chairs rocked vigorously to and fro 
 to hide their embarrassment. They all talked in loud voices. 
 
 Howard felt nervous under this furtive scrutiny. He wished 
 that his clothes didn't look so confoundedly dressy. Why didn't he 
 have sense enough to go and buy a fifteen-dollar suit of diagonals 
 for everyday wear. 
 
 Rose was the life of the party. Her tongue rattled on in the 
 most delightful way. 
 
 "It's all Rose and Bill's doin's," Mrs. Mcllvaine explained. 
 "They told us to come over and pick up anybody we see on the 
 road. So we did." 
 
 Howard winced a little at her familiarity of tone. He couldn't 
 help it for the life of him. 
 
 "Well, I wanted to come to-night because I'm going away next 
 week, and I wanted to see how he'd act at a surprise-party again," 
 Rose explained. 
 
 "Married, I s'pose?" said Mrs. Mcllvaine, abruptly. 
 
 "No, not yet." 
 
 "Good land! Why, y' mus' be thirty-five. How. Must 'a' dis'- 
 p'inted y'r mam not to have a young 'un to call 'er granny." 
 
 The men came clumping in, talking about haying and horses. 
 Some of the older ones Howard knew and greeted, but the younger 
 ones were mainly too much changed. They were all very ill at 
 ease. Most of them were in compromise dress — something lying 
 between working "rig" and Sunday dress. Some of them had on 
 clean shirts and paper collars, and wore their Sunday coats (thick 
 woollen garments) over rough trousers. Most of them crossed 
 their legs at once, and all of them sought the wall and leaned back 
 perilously upon the hind legs of their chairs, eyeing Howard slowly. 
 
74 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 For the first few minutes the presents were the subjects of con- 
 versation. The women especially spent a good deal of talk upon 
 them. 
 
 Howard found himself forced to taking the initia,tive, so he in- 
 quired about the crops and about the farms. 
 
 "I see you don't plough the hills as we used to. And reap! What 
 /a job it used to be. It makes the hills more beautiful to have them 
 •" covered with smooth grass and cattle." 
 
 ■'f^ There was only dead silence to this touching upon the idea of 
 ;^Jbeauty. 
 
 '' "I s'pose it pays reasonably?" 
 , "Not enough to kill," said one of the younger men. "You c'n see 
 that by the houses we live in — that is, most of us. A few that came 
 in early an' got land cheap, like Mcllvaine, here — he got a lift that 
 the rest of us can't get." 
 
 "I'm a free-trader, myself," said one young fellow, blushing 
 and looking away as Howard turned and said cheerily: 
 
 "So 'm I." 
 
 The rest seemed to feel that this was a tabooed subject — a sub- 
 ject to be talked out of doors, where a man could prance about and 
 yell and do justice to it. 
 
 Grant sat silently in the kitchen doorway, not saying a word, 
 not looking at his brother. 
 
 "Well, I don't never use hot vinegar for mine," Mrs. Mcllvaine 
 was heard to say. "I jest use hot water, and I rinse 'em out good, 
 and set 'em bottom-side up in the sun. I do' know but what hot 
 vinegar would be more cleansin'." 
 
 Rose had the younger folks in a giggle with a droll telling of a 
 joke on herself. 
 
 "How d' y' stop 'em from laffin' ?" 
 
 "I let 'em laugh. Oh, my school is a disgrace — so one director 
 says. But I like to see children laugh. It broadens their cheeks." 
 
 "Yes, that's all hand-work." Laura was showing the baby's Sun- 
 day clothes. 
 
 "Goodness Peter ! How do you find time to do so much ?" 
 
 "I take time." 
 
 Howard, being the lion of the evening, tried his best to be agree- 
 
Up the Coolly 75 
 
 able. He kept near his mother, because it afforded her so much pride 
 and satisfaction, and because he was obliged to keep away from 
 Grant, who had begun to talk to the men. Howard talked mainly 
 about their affairs, but still was forced more and more into telling 
 of his life in the city. As he told of the theatre and the concerts, a 
 sudden change fell upon them; they grew sober, and he felt deep 
 down in the hearts of these people a melancholy which was ex- 
 pressed only illusively with little tones or sighs. Their gayety was 
 fitful. 
 
 They were hungry for the world, for life — these young people. 
 Discontented, and yet hardly daring to acknowledge it; indeed, 
 few of them could have made definite statement of their dissatis- 
 faction. The older people felt it less. They practically said, with a 
 sigh of pathetic resignation: 
 
 "Well, I don't expect ever to see these things now." 
 
 A casual observer would have said, "What a pleasant bucolic — 
 this little surprise-party of welcome !" But Howard, with his native 
 ear and eye, had no such pleasing illusion. He knew too well these 
 suggestions of despair and bitterness. He knew that, like the smile 
 of the slave, this cheerfulness was self-defence ; deep down was an- 
 other unsatisfied ego. 
 
 Seeing Grant talking with a group of men over by the kitchen 
 door, he crossed over slowly and stood listening. Wesley Cosgrove 
 — a tall, raw-boned young fellow with a grave, almost tragic face 
 — was saying: 
 
 "Of course I ain't. Who is ? A man that's satisfied to live as we 
 do is a fool." 
 
 "The worst of it is," said Grant, without seeing Howard, "a 
 man can't get out of it during his lifetime, and / don't know that 
 he'll have any chance in the next — the speculator '11 be there ahead 
 of us." 
 
 The rest laughed, but Grant went on grimly: 
 
 "Ten years ago Wess, here, could have got land in Dakota pretty 
 easy, but now it's about all a feller's life's worth to try it. I tell you 
 things seem shuttin' down on us fellers." 
 
 "Plenty o' land to rent," suggested some one. 
 
 "Yes, in terms that skin a man alive. More than that, farmin' 
 
76 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 ain't so free a life as it used to be. This cattle-raisin' and butter- 
 makin' makes a nigger of a man. Binds him right down to the 
 grindstone and he gets nothin' out of it — that's what rubs it in. He 
 simply wallers around in the manure for somebody else. I'd like 
 to know what a man's life is worth who lives as we do ? How much 
 ^higher is it than the lives the niggers used to live?" 
 
 These brutally bald words made Howard thrill with emotion 
 (/"like the reading of som e great t^'ag''' p aem. A silence fell on the 
 group. 
 
 "That's the God's truth, Grant," said young Cosgrove, after a 
 pause. 
 
 "A man like me is helpless," Grant was saying. "Just like a fly 
 in a pan of molasses. There's no escape for him. The more he tears 
 around the more liable he is to rip his legs ofE." 
 
 "What can he do?" 
 
 "Nothin'." 
 
 The men listened in silence. 
 
 "Oh, come, don't talk politics all night!" cried Rose, breaking 
 in. "Come, let's have a dance. Where's that fiddle?" 
 
 "Fiddle!" cried Howard, glad of a chance to laugh. "Well, now! 
 Bring out that fiddle. Is it William's?" 
 
 "'Yes, pap's old fiddle." 
 
 "O Gosh! he don't want to hear me play," protested William. 
 "He's heard s' many fiddlers." 
 
 "Fiddlers! I've heard a thousand violinists, but not fiddlers. 
 Come, give us 'Honest John.' " 
 
 William took the fiddle in his work-calloused and crooked hands 
 and began tuning it. The group at the kitchen door turned to 
 listen, their faces lighting up a little. Rose tried to get a "set" on 
 the floor. 
 
 "Oh, good land!" said some. "We're all tuckered out. What 
 makes you so anxious ?" 
 
 "She wants a chance to dance with the New Yorker." 
 
 "That's it, exactly," Rose admitted. 
 
 "Wal, if you'd churned and mopped and cooked for hayin' hands 
 »s I have to-day, you wouldn't be so full o' nonsense." 
 
Up the Coolly 'j'j 
 
 "Oh, bother! Life's short. Come, quick, get Bettie out. Come, 
 Wess, never mind your hobby-horse." 
 
 By incredible exertion she got a set on the floor, and William 
 got the fiddle in tune. Howard looked across at Wesley, and 
 thought the change in him splendidly dramatic. His face was lighted 
 with a timid, deprecating, boyish smile. Rose could do anything 
 with him. 
 
 William played some of the old tunes that had a thousand asso- 
 ciated memories in Howard's brain, memories of harvest-moons, of 
 melon-feasts, and of clear, cold winter nights. As he danced, his 
 eyes filled with a tender light. He came closer to them all than he 
 had been able to do before. Grant had gone out into the kitchen. 
 
 After two or three sets had been danced, the company took seats 
 and could not be stirred again. So Laura and Rose disappeared for 
 a few moments, and returning, served strawberries and cream, 
 which Laura said she "just happened to have in the house." 
 
 And then William played again. His fingers, now grown more 
 supple, brought out clearer, firmer tones. As he played, silence fell 
 on these people. The magic of music sobered every face ; the women 
 looked older and more careworn, the men slouched sullenly in their 
 chairs, or leaned back against the wall. 
 
 It seemed to Howard as if the spirit of tragedy had entered this 
 house. Music had always been William's unconscious expression of 
 his unsatisfied desires. He was never melancholy except when he 
 played. Then his eyes grew sombre, his drooping face full of 
 shadows. 
 
 He played on slowly, softly, wailing Scotch tunes and mournful 
 Irish love songs. He seemed to find in these melodies, and espe- 
 cially in a wild, sweet, low-keyed negro song, some expression for 
 his indefinable inner melancholy. ) 
 
 "Tie played on, forgetful of everybody, his long beard sweeping 
 the violin, his toil-worn hands marvellously obedient to his will. 
 
 At last he stopped, looked up with a faint, apologetic smile, and 
 said with a sigh : 
 
 "Well, folkses, time to go home." 
 
78 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 The going was quiet. Not much laughing. Howard stood at the 
 door and said good-night to them all, his heart very tender. 
 
 "Come and see us," they said. 
 
 "I will," he replied cordially. "I'll try and get around to see 
 everybody, and talk over old times, before I go back." 
 
 After the wagons had driven out of the yard, Howard turned 
 and put his arm about his mother's neck. 
 
 "Tired?" 
 
 "A little." 
 
 "Well, now good night. I'm going for a little stroll." 
 
 His brain was too active to sleep. He kissed his mother good- 
 night, and went out into the road, his hat in his hand, the cool 
 moist wind on his hair. 
 
 It was very dark, the stars being partly hidden by a thin vapor. 
 On each side the hills rose, every line familiar as the face of an old 
 friend. A whippoorwill called occasionally from the hillside, and 
 the spasmodic jangle of a bell now and then told of some cow's 
 battle with the mosquitoes. 
 
 As he walked, he pondered upon the tragedy he had rediscov- 
 ered in these people's lives. Out here under the inexorable spaces of 
 the sky, a deep distaste of his own life took possession of him. He 
 ,'felt like giving it all up. He thought of the infinite tragedy of 
 these lives which the world loves to call peaceful and pastoral. His 
 mind went out in the aim to help them. What could he do to make 
 \ life better worth living? Nothing. 
 \ They must live and die practically as he saw them to-night. 
 
 \^nd yet he knew this was a mood, and that in a few hours the 
 love and the habit of life would come back upon him and upon 
 them ; that he would go back to the city in a few days ; that these 
 people would live on and make the best of it. 
 
 "/'// make the best of it," he said at last, and his thought came 
 back to his mother and Grant. 
 
 IV 
 
 The next day was a rainy day; not a shower, but a steady rain 
 ■ — an unusual thing in midsummer in the West. A cold, dismal day 
 
up the Coolly 79 
 
 in the fireless, colorless farmhouses. It came to Howard in that 
 peculiar reaction which surely comes during a visit of this character, 
 when thought is a weariness, when the visitor longs for his own 
 familiar walls and pictures and books, and longs to meet his friends, 
 feeling at the same time the tragedy of life which makes friends 
 nearer and more congenial than blood-relations. 
 
 Howard ate his breakfast alone, save Baby and Laura its mother 
 going about the room. Baby and mother alike insisted on feeding 
 him to death. Already dyspeptic pangs were setting in. 
 
 "Now ain't there something more I can " 
 
 "Good heavens! No!" he cried in dismay. "I'm likely to die of 
 dyspepsia now. This honey and milk, and these delicious hot bis- 
 cuits " 
 
 "I'm afraid it ain't much like the breakfasts you have in the city." 
 
 "Well, no, it ain't," he confessed. "But this is the kind a man 
 needs when he lives in the open air." 
 
 She sat down opposite him, with her elbows on the table, her 
 chin in her palm, her eyes full of shadows. 
 
 "I'd like to go to a city once. I never saw a town bigger'n La 
 Crosse. I've never seen a play, but I've read of 'em in the maga- 
 zines. It must be wonderful ; they say they have wharves and real 
 ships coming up to the wharf, and people getting off and on. How 
 do they do it?" 
 
 "Oh, that's too long a story to tell. It's a lot of machinery and 
 paint and canvas. If I told you how it was done, you wouldn't 
 enjoy it so well when you come on and see it." 
 
 "Do you ever expect to see me in New York?" 
 
 "Why, yes. Why not ? I expect Grant to come on and bring you 
 all some day, especially Tonikins here. Tonikins, you hear, sir? 
 I expect you to come on you' forf birfday, sure." He tried thus to 
 stop the woman's gloomy confidence. 
 
 "I hate farm-life," she went on with a bitter inflection. "It's 
 nothing but fret, fret, and work the whole time, never going any 
 place, never seeing anybody but a lot of neighbors just as big fools 
 as you are. I spend my time fighting flies and washing dishes and 
 churning. I'm sick of it all." 
 
8o Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 Howard was silent. What could he say to such an indictment? 
 The ceiling swarmed with flies which the cold rain had driven to 
 seek the warmth of the kitchen. The gray rain was falling with a 
 dreary sound outside, and down the kitchen stove-pipe an occa- 
 sional drop fell on the stove with a hissing, angry sound. 
 
 The young wife went on with a deeper note : 
 
 "I lived in La Crosse two years, going to school, and I know a 
 little something of what city life is. If I was a man, I bet I 
 wouldn't wear my life out on a farm, as Grant does. I'd get away 
 and I'd do something. I wouldn't care what, but I'd get away." 
 
 There was a certain volcanic energy back of all the woman said, 
 that made Howard feel she would make the attempt. She did not 
 I know that the struggle for a place to stand on this planet was eat- 
 '. ing the heart and soul out of men and women in the city, just as in 
 ithe country. But he could say nothing. If he had said in conven- 
 'tional phrase, sitting there in his soft clothing, "We must make the 
 best of it all," the woman could justly have thrown the dish-cloth 
 in his face. He could say nothing. 
 
 "I was a fool for ever marrying," she went on, while the baby 
 pushed a chair across the room. "I made a decent living teaching, I 
 was free to come and go, my money was my own. Now I'm tied 
 right down to a churn or a dish-pan, I never have a cent of my own. 
 He's growlin' 'round half the time, and there's no chance of his 
 ever being different." 
 
 She stopped with a bitter sob in her throat. She forgot she was 
 talking to her husband's brother. She was conscious only of his 
 sympathy. 
 
 As if a great black cloud had settled down upon him, Howard 
 
 felt it all — the horror, hopelessness, imminent tragedy of it all. 
 
 r The glory of nature, the bounty and splendor of the sky, only made 
 
 it the more benumbing. He thought of a sentence Millet once 
 
 wrote : 
 
 "4 "I see very well the aureole of the dandelions, and the sun also, 
 
 j far down there behind the hills, flinging his glory upon the clouds. 
 
 I But not alone that — I see in the plains the smoke of the tired horses 
 
 at the plough, or, on a stony-hearted spot of ground, a back-broken 
 
Up the Coolly 8i 
 
 man trying to raise himself upright for a moment to breathe. The 
 tragedy is surrounded by glories — that is no invention of mine." 
 
 Howard arose abruptly and went back to his little bedroom, 
 where he walked up and down the floor till he was calm enough to 
 write, and then he sat down and poured it all out to "Dearest 
 Margaret," and his first sentence was this: 
 
 "If it were not for you (just to let you know the mood I'm in) 
 — if it were not for you, and I had the world in my hands, I'd crush 
 it like a pufE-ball ; evil so predominates, suffering is so universal and 
 persistent, happiness so fleeting and so infrequent." 
 
 He wrote on for two hours, and by the time he had sealed and 
 directed several letters he felt calmer, but still terribly depressed. 
 The rain was still falling, sweeping down from the half-seen hills, 
 wreathing the wooded peaks with a gray garment of mist, and 
 filling the valley with a whitish cloud. 
 
 It fell around the house drearily. It ran down into the tubs 
 placed to catch it, dripped from the mossy pump, and drummed 
 on the upturned milk-pails, and upon the brown and yellow bee- 
 hives under the maple trees. The chickens seemed depressed, but 
 the irrepressible bluejay screamed amid it all, with the same in- 
 solent spirit, his plumage untarnished by the wet. The barnyard 
 showed a horrible mixture of mud and mire, through which How- 
 ard caught glimpses of the men, slumping to and fro without more 
 additional protection than a ragged coat and a shapeless felt hat. 
 
 In the sitting room where his mother sat sewing there was not an 
 ornament, save the etching he had brought. The clock stood on a 
 small shelf, its dial so much defaced that one could not tell the 
 time of day; and when it struck, it was with noticeably dispropor- 
 tionate deliberation, as if it wished to correct any mistake into 
 which the family might have fallen by reason of its illegible 
 dial. 
 
 The paper on the walls showed the first concession of the Puri- ^' 
 tans to the Spirit of Beauty, and was made up of a heterogeneous/-^ 
 mixture of flowers of unheard-of-shapes and colors, arranged in 
 four different ways along the wall. There were no books, no music, 
 and only a few newspapers in sight — a bare, blank, cold, drab- 
 
82 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 colored shelter from the rain, not a home. Nothing cosy, nothing 
 heart-warming; a grim and horrible shed. 
 
 "What are they doing? It can't be they're at work such a day as 
 this," Howard said, standing at the window. 
 
 "They find plenty to do, even on rainy days," answered his 
 mother. "Grant always has some job to set the men at. It's the only 
 way to live." 
 
 "I'll go out and see them." He turned suddenly. "Mother, why 
 should Grant treat me so? Have I deserved it?" 
 
 Mrs. McLane sighed in pathetic hopelessness. "I don't know, 
 Howard. I'm worried about Grant. He gets more an' more down- 
 hearted an' gloomy every day. Seems if he'd go crazy. He don't 
 care how he looks any more, won't dress up on Sunday. Days an' 
 days he'll go aroun' not sayin' a word. I was in hopes you could 
 help him, Howard." 
 
 "My coming seems to have had an opposite effect. He hasn't 
 spoken a word to me, except when he had to, since I came. Mother, 
 what do you say to going home with me to New York?" 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't do that!" she cried in terror. "I couldn't live 
 in a big city — never!" 
 
 "There speaks the truly rural mind," smiled Howard at his 
 mother, who was looking up at him through her glasses with a 
 pathetic forlornness which sobered him again. "Why, mother, you 
 could live in Orange, New Jersey, or out in Connecticut, and be 
 just as lonesome as you are here. You wouldn't need to live in the 
 city. I could see you then every day or two." 
 
 "Well, I couldn't leave Grant an' the baby, anyway," she re- 
 plied, not realizing how one could live in New Jersey and do busi- 
 ness daily in New York. 
 
 "Well, then, how would you like to go back into the old house?" 
 
 The patient hands fell to the lap, the dim eyes fixed in searching 
 glance on his face. There was a wistful cry in the voice. 
 
 "Oh, Howard ! Do you mean " 
 
 He came and sat down by her, and put his arm about her and 
 hugged her hard. "I mean, you dear, good, patient, work-weary 
 old mother, I'm going to buy back the old farm and put you in it." 
 
Up the Coolly 83 
 
 There was no refuge for her now except in tears, and she put up 
 her thin, trembling old hands about his neck, and cried in that easy, 
 placid, restful way age has. 
 
 Howard could not speak. His throat ached with remorse and 
 pity. He saw his forgetfulness of them all once more without re- 
 lief, — the black thing it was ! 
 
 "There, there, mother, don't cry!" he said, torn with anguish 
 by her tears. Measured by man's tearlessness, her weeping seemed 
 terrible to him. "I didn't realize how things were going here. It 
 was all my fault — or, at least, most of it. Grant's letter didn't reach 
 me. I thought you were still on the old farm. But no matter ; it's 
 all over now. Come, don't cry any more, mother dear. I'm going to 
 take care of you now." 
 
 It had been years since the poor, lonely woman had felt such 
 warmth of love. Her sons had been like her husband, chary of ex- 
 pressing their affection; and like most Puritan families, there was 
 little of caressing among them. Sitting there with the rain on the 
 roof and driving through the trees, they planned getting back into 
 the old house. Howard's plan seemed to her full of splendor and 
 audacity. She began to understand his power and wealth now, as he 
 put it into concrete form before her. 
 
 "I wish I cuuld eat Thanksgiving dinner there with you," he 
 said at last, "but it can't be thought of. However, I'll have you all 
 in there before I go home. I'm going out now and tell Grant. Now 
 don't worry any more; I'm going to fix it all up with him, sure." 
 He gave her a parting hug. 
 
 Laura advised him not to attempt to get to the barn; but as he 
 persisted in going, she hunted up an old rubber coat for him. 
 "You'll mire down and spoil your shoes," she said, glancing at his 
 neat calf gaiters. 
 
 "Darn the difference!" he laughed in his old way. "Besides, I've 
 got rubbers." 
 
 "Better go round by the fence," she advised, as he stepped out 
 into the pouring rain. 
 
 How wretchedly familiar it all was! The miry cowyard, with 
 the hollow trampled out around the horse-trough, the disconsolate 
 
84 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 hens standing under the wagons and sheds, a pig wallowing across 
 its sty, and for atmosphere the desolate, falling rain. It was so 
 familiar he felt a pang of the old rebellious despair which seized 
 him on such days in his boyhood. 
 
 Catching up courage, he stepped out on the grass, opened the 
 gate and entered the barn-yard. A narrow ribbon of turf ran 
 around the fence, on which he could walk by clinging with one 
 hand to the rough boards. In this way he slowly made his way 
 around the periphery, and came at last to the open barn-door with- 
 out much harm. 
 
 It was a desolate interior. In the open floor-way Grant, seated 
 upon a half-bushel, was mending a harness. The old man was hold- 
 ing the trace in his hard brown hands ; the boy was lying on a wisp 
 of hay. It was a small barn, and poor at that. There was a bad 
 smell, as of dead rats, about it, and the rain fell through the shin- 
 gles here and there. To the right, and below, the horses stood, 
 looking up with their calm and beautiful eyes, in which the whole 
 scene was idealized. 
 
 Grant looked up an instant, and then went on with his work. 
 
 "Did yeh wade through?" grinned Lewis, exposing his broken 
 teeth. 
 
 "No, I kinder circumambiated the pond." He sat down on the 
 little tool-box near Grant. "Your barn is a good deal like that in 
 The Arkansaw Traveller.' Needs a new roof. Grant." His voice 
 had a pleasant sound, full of the tenderness of the scene through 
 which he had just been. "In fact, you need a new barn." 
 
 "I need a good many things, more'n I'll ever get," Grant replied 
 shortly. 
 
 "How long did you say you'd been on this farm?" 
 
 "Three years this fall." 
 
 "I don't s'pose you've been able to think of buying — Now hold 
 on. Grant," he cried, as Grant threw his head back. "For God's 
 sake, don't get mad again! Wait till you see what I'm driving at." 
 
 "I don't see what you're drivin' at, and I don't care. All I want 
 you to do is to let us alone. That ought to be easy enough for you." 
 
 "I tell you, I didn't get your letter. I didn't know you'd lost the 
 
Up the Coolly 85 
 
 old farm." Howard was determined not to quarrel, "I didn't sup- 
 pose " 
 
 "You might 'a' come to see." 
 
 "Well, I'll admit that. All I can say in excuse is that since I got 
 to managing plays I've kept looking ahead to making a big hit and 
 getting a barrel of money — ^just as the old miners used to hope and 
 watch. Besides, you don't understand how much pressure there is 
 on me. A hundred different people pulling and hauling to have me 
 go here or go there, or do this or do that. When it isn't yachting, 
 it's canoeing, or " 
 
 He stopped. His heart gave a painful throb, and a shiver ran 
 through him. Again he saw his life, so rich, so bright, so free, set 
 over against the routine life in the little low kitchen, the barren 
 sitting room, and this still more horrible barn. Why should his 
 brother sit there in wet and grimy clothing, mending a broken 
 trace, while he enjoyed all the light and civilization of the age? 
 
 He looked at Grant's fine figure, his great, strong face; recalled 
 his deep, stern, masterful voice. "Am I so much superior to him? 
 Have not circumstances made me and destroyed him ?" 
 
 "Grant, for God's sake, don't sit there like that! I'll admit I've 
 been negligent and careless. I can't understand it all myself. But 
 let me do something for you now. I've sent to New York for five 
 thousand dollars. I've got terms on the old farm. Let me see you 
 all back there once more before I return." 
 
 "I don't want any of your charity." 
 
 "It ain't charity. It's only justice to you." He rose. "Come, now, 
 let's get at an understanding. Grant. I can't go on this way. I 
 can't go back to New York and leave you here like this." 
 
 Grant rose too. "I tell you, I don't ask your help. You can't fix 
 this thing up with money. If you've got more brains'n I have, why, 
 it's all right. I ain't got any right to take anything that I don't 
 earn." 
 
 "But you don't get what you do earn. It ain't your fault. I begin 
 \o see it now. Being the oldest, I had the best chance. I was going 
 to town to school while you were ploughing and husking corn. Of 
 course I thought you'd be going soon yourself. I had three years 
 
86 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 the start of you. If you'd been in my place, you might have met a 
 man like Cook, you might have gone to New York and have been 
 where I am." 
 
 "Well, it can't be helped now. So drop it." 
 '""But it must be helped !" Howard said, pacing about, his hands 
 in his coat-pockets. Grant had stopped work, and was gloomily 
 looking out of the door at a pig nosing in the mud for stray grains 
 of wheat at the granary door. The old man and the boy quietly 
 withdrew. 
 
 "Good God! I see it all now," Howard burst out in an im- 
 passioned tone. "I went ahead with my education, got my start in 
 life, then father died, and you took up his burdens. Circumstances 
 made me and crushed you. That's all there is about that. Luck 
 made me and cheated you. It ain't right." 
 
 His voice faltered. Both men were now oblivious of their com- 
 panions and of the scene. Both were thinking of the days when 
 they both planned great things in the way of education, two am- 
 bitious, dreamful boys. 
 
 "I used to think of you, Grant, when I pulled out Monday 
 morning in my best suit — cost fifteen dollars in those days." He 
 smiled a little at the recollection. "While you in overalls and an 
 old 'wammus' were going out into the field to plough, or husk corn 
 in the mud. It made me feel uneasy, but, as I said, I kept saying 
 to myself, 'His turn'll come in a year or two.' But it didn't." 
 
 His voice choked. He walked to the door, stood s moment, came 
 back. His eyes were full of tears. 
 
 "I tell you, old man, many a time in my boarding-house down 
 to the city, when I thought of the jolly times I was having, my 
 heart hurt me. But I said, 'It's no use to cry. Better go on and do 
 the best you can, and then help them afterward. There'll only be 
 one more miserable member of the family if you stay at home.' 
 Besides, it seemed right to me to have first chance. But I never 
 thought you'd be shut off, Grant. If I had, I never would have 
 gone on. Come, old man, I want you to believe that." His voice 
 was very tender now and almost humble. 
 
 "I don't know as I blame you for that. How.," said Grant, 
 
Up the Coolly 87 
 
 slowly. It was the first time he had called Howard by his boyish 
 nickname. His voice was softer, too, and higher in key. But he 
 looked steadily away. 
 
 "I went to New York. People liked my work. I was very success- 
 ful. Grant; more successful than you realize. I could have helped 
 you at any time. There's no use lying about it. And I ought to have 
 done it; but some way — it's no excuse, I don't mean it for an 
 excuse, only an explanation — some way I got in with the boys. I 
 don't mean I was a drinker and all that. But I bought pictures 
 and kept a horse and a yacht, and of course I had to pay my share 
 of all expeditions, and — oh, what's the use!" 
 
 He broke off, turned, and threw his open palms out toward his 
 brother, as if throwing aside the last attempt at an excuse. 
 
 "I did neglect you, and it's a damned shame! and I ask your 
 forgiveness. Come, old man !" 
 
 He held out his hand, and Grant slowly approached and took 
 it. There was a little silence. Then Howard went on, his voice 
 trembling, the tears on his face. 
 
 "I want you to let me help you, old man. That's the way to for- 
 give me. Will you?" 
 
 "Yes, if you can help me." 
 
 Howard squeezed his hand. "That's all right, old man. Now 
 
 you make me a boy again. Course I can help you. I've got ten " 
 
 "^ "I don't mean that, How." Grant's voice was very grave. 
 "Money can't give me a chance now." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean life ain't worth very much to me. I'm too old to take a 
 new start. I'm a dead failure. I've come to the conclusion that life's 
 a failure for ninety-nine per cent of us. You can't help me now. It's 
 too late!" \<U ■ff 
 
 The two men stood there, face to face, hands clasped, the one 
 fair-skinned, f uU-lipped, handsome in his neat suit ; the other tragic, 
 sombre in his softened mood, his large, long, rugged Scotch face 
 bronzed with sun and scarred with wrinkles that had histories, like 
 sabre-cuts on a veteran, the record of his battles. 
 
AMONG THE CORN-ROWS 
 
 Rob held up his hands, from which the dough depended in 
 ragged strings. 
 
 "Biscuits," he said, with an elaborate working of his jaws, in- 
 tended to convey the idea that they were going to be specially 
 delicious. 
 
 Seagraves laughed, but did not enter the shanty door. "How do 
 you like baching it?" 
 
 "Oh, don't mention it!" entreated Rob, mauling the dough 
 again. "Come in an' sit down. What in thunder y' standin' out 
 there for?" 
 
 "Oh, I'd rather be where I can see the prairie. Great weather!" 
 
 "Im-mense !" 
 
 "How goes breaking?" 
 
 "Tip-top! A leetle dry now; but the bulls pull the plough 
 through two acres a day. How's things in Boomtown?" 
 
 "Oh, same old grind." 
 
 "Judge still lyin'?" 
 
 "Still at it." 
 
 "Major Mullens still swearin' to it?" 
 
 "You hit it like a mallet. Railroad schemes are thicker 'n prairie- 
 chickens. You've got grit, Rob. I don't have anything but crackers 
 and sardines over to my shanty, and here you are making soda- 
 biscuit." 
 
 "I have t' do it. Couldn't break if I didn't. You editors c'n take 
 things easy, lay around on the prairie, and watch the plovers and 
 medderlarks ; but we settlers have got to work." 
 
 Leaving Rob to sputter over his cooking, Seagraves took his 
 slow way off down toward the oxen grazing in a little hollow. 
 The scene was characteristically, wonderfully beautiful. It was 
 about five o'clock in a day in late June, and the level plain was 
 
 88 
 
Among the Corn-Rows 89 
 
 green and yellow, and infinite in reach as a sea; the lowering sun 
 was casting over its distant swells a faint impalpable mist, through 
 which the breaking teams on the neighboring claims ploughed 
 noiselessly, as figures in a dream. The whistle of gophers, the faint, 
 wailing, fluttering cry of the falling plover, the whir of the swift- 
 winged prairie-pigeon, or the quack of a lonely duck, came through 
 the shimmering air. The lark's infrequent whistle, piercingly sweet, 
 broke from the longer grass in the swales near by. No other climate, 
 sky, plain, could produce the same unnamable weird charm. No tree 
 to wave, no grass to rustle, scarcely a sound of domestic life; only 
 the faint melancholy soughing of the wind in the short grass, and 
 the voices of the wild things of the prairie. 
 
 Seagraves, an impressionable young man (junior editor of the 
 Boomtown Spike), threw himself down on the sod, pulled his hat- 
 rim down over his eyes, and looked away over the plain. It was 
 the second year of Boomtown's existence, and Seagraves had not 
 yet grown restless under its monotony. Around him the gophers 
 played saucily. Teams were moving here and there across the sod, 
 with a peculiar noiseless, effortless motion, that made them seem 
 as calm, lazy, and insubstantial as the mist through which they 
 made their way; even the sound of passing wagons seemed a sort 
 of low, well-fed, self-satisfied chuckle. 
 
 Seagraves, "holding down a claim" near Rob, had come to see 
 his neighboring "bach" because feeling the need of company; but 
 now that he was near enough to hear him prancing about getting 
 supper, he was content to lie alone on a slope of the green sod. 
 
 The silence of the prairie at night was well-nigh terrible. Many 
 a night, as Seagraves lay in his bunk against the side of his cabin, 
 he would strain his ear to hear the slightest sound, and be listening 
 thus sometimes for minutes before the squeak of a mouse or the 
 step of a passing fox came as a relief to the aching sense. In the 
 daytime, however, and especially on a morning, the prairie was 
 another thing. The pigeons, the larks, the cranes, the multitudinous 
 voices of the ground-birds and snipes and insects, made the air 
 pulsate with sound — a chorus that died away into an infinite mur- 
 mur of music. 
 
90 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Hello, Seagraves!" yelled Rob from the door. "The biscuits are 
 'most done." 
 
 Seagraves did not speak, only nodded his head, and slowly rose. 
 The faint clouds in the west were getting a superb flame-color 
 above and a misty purple below, and the sun had pierced them 
 with lances of yellow light. As the air grew denser with moisture, 
 the sounds of neighboring life began to reach the air. Children 
 screamed and laughed, and afar off a woman was singing a lullaby. 
 The rattle of wagons and the voices of men speaking to their teams 
 multiplied. Ducks in a neighboring lowland were quacking 
 sociably. The whole scene took hold upon Seagraves with irresist- 
 ible power. 
 
 "It is American," he exclaimed. "No other land or time can 
 match this mellow air, this wealth of color, much less the strange 
 S/^cial conditions of life on this sunlit Dakota prairie." 
 
 Rob, though visibly affected by the scene also, couldn't let his 
 biscuit spoil or go without proper attention. 
 
 "Say, ain't y' comin' t' grub ?" he asked impatiently. 
 
 "In a minute," replied his friend, taking a last wistful look at 
 the scene. "I want one more look at the landscape." 
 
 "Landscape be blessed! If you'd been breakin' all day — Come, 
 take that stool an' draw up." 
 
 "No; I'll take the candle-box." 
 
 "Not much. I know what manners are, if I am a bull-driver." 
 
 Seagraves took the three-legged and rather precarious-looking 
 stool and drew up to the table, which was a flat broad box nailed 
 up against the side of the wall, with two strips of board spiked at 
 the outer corners for legs. 
 
 "How's that f'r a lay-out?" Rob inquired proudly. 
 
 "Well, you have spread yourself! Biscuit and canned peaches 
 and sardines and cheese. Why, this is — is — prodigal." 
 
 "It ain't nothin' else." 
 
 Rob was from one of the finest counties of Wisconsin, over 
 toward Milwaukee. He was of German parentage, a middle-sized, 
 cheery, wide-awake, good-looking young fellow— a typical claim- 
 holder. He was always confident, jovial, and full of plans for the 
 
Among the Corn-Rows 91 
 
 future. He had dug his own well, built his own shanty, washed 
 and mended his own clothing. He could do anything, and do it 
 well. He had a fine field of wheat, and was finishing the ploughing 
 of his entire quarter-section. 
 
 "This is what I call settin' under a feller's own vine an' fig 
 tree" — after Seagraves' compliments — "an' I like it, I'm my own 
 boss. No man can say 'come here' 'r 'go there' to me. I get up when 
 I'm a min' to, an' go t' bed when I'm a min' to." 
 
 "Some drawbacks, I s'pose?" 
 
 "Yes. Mice, f'r instance, give me a devilish lot o' trouble. They 
 get into my flour-barrel, eat up my cheese, an' fall into my well. 
 But it ain't no use t' swear." 
 
 Seagraves quoted an old rhyme: 
 
 " 'The rats and the mice made such a strife 
 He had to go to London to buy him a wife.' " 
 
 "Don't blush. I've probed your secret thought." 
 
 "Well, to tell the honest truth," said Rob, a little sheepishly, 
 leaning across the table, "I ain't satisfied with my style o' cookin'. 
 It's good, but a little too plain, y' know. I'd like a change. It ain't 
 much fun to break all day, and then go to work an' cook y'r own 
 supper." 
 
 "No, I should say not." 
 
 "This fall I'm going back to Wisconsin. Girls are thick as huckle- 
 berries back there, and I'm goin' t' bring one back, now you hear 
 me." 
 
 "Good ! That's the plan," laughed Seagraves, amused at a certain 
 timid and apprehensive look in his companion's eye. "Just think 
 what a woman would do to put this shanty in shape; and think 
 how nice it would be to take her arm and saunter out after supper, 
 and look at the farm, and plan, and lay out gardens and paths, and 
 tend the chickens!" 
 
 Rob's manly and self-reliant nature had the settler's typical 
 buoyancy and hopefulness, as well as a certain power of analysis, 
 which enabled him now to say: "The fact is, we fellers holdin' 
 down claims out here ain't fools clear to the rine. We know a 
 
92 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 couple o' things. Now I didn't leave Waupac County f r fun. Did 
 y' ever see Waupac? Well, it's one o' the handsomest counties the 
 sun ever shone on, full o' lakes and rivers and groves of timber. I 
 miss 'em all out here, and I miss the boys an' girls ; but they wa'n't 
 no chance there f'r a feller. Land that wzs good was so blamed 
 high you couldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole from a balloon. 
 Rent was high, if you wanted t' rent, an' so a feller like me had t' 
 get out, an' now I'm out here, I'm goin' t' make the most of it. 
 Another thing," he went on, after a pause — "we fellers workin' 
 out back there got more 'n' more like hands, an' less like human 
 beings. Y' know, Waupac is a kind of a summer resort, and the 
 people that use' t' come in summers looked down on us cusses in 
 the fields an' shops. I couldn't stand it. By God!" he said, with a 
 sudden impulse of rage quite unusual, "I'd rather live on an iceberg 
 and claw crabs f'r a livin' than have some feller passin' me on the 
 road an' callin' me 'fellah !' " 
 
 Seagraves knew what he meant, but listened in astonishment at 
 his outburst. 
 
 "I consider myself a sight better 'n any man who lives on some- 
 body else's hard work. I've never had a cent I didn't earn with 
 them hands." He held them up and broke into a grin. "Beauties, 
 ain't they? But they never wore gloves that some other poor cuss 
 earned." 
 
 Seagraves thought them grand hands, worthy to grasp the hand 
 of any man or woman living. 
 
 "Well, so I come West, just like a thousand other fellers, to 
 get a start where the cussed European aristocracy hadn't got a 
 holt on the people. I like it here — course I'd like the lakes an* 
 meadows of Waupac better — but I'm my own boss, as I say, and 
 I'm goin' to stay my own boss if I have to live on crackers an' 
 wheat coffee to do it ; that's the kind of a hair-pin I am." 
 
 In the pause which followed, Seagraves, plunged deep into 
 thought by Rob's words, leaned his head on his hand. This work- 
 ing farmer had voiced the modern idea. It was an absolute overturn 
 of all the ideas of nobility and special privilege born of the feudal 
 past. 
 
Among the Corn-Rows 93 
 
 "I'd like to use your idea for an editorial, Rob," he said. 
 
 "My ideas!" exclaimed the astounded host, pausing in the act 
 of filling his pipe. "My ideas! Why, I didn't know I had any." 
 
 "Well, you've given me some, anyhow." 
 
 Seagraves felt that it was a wild, grand upstirring of the modern 
 democrat against the aristocrat, against the idea of caste and the 
 privilege of living on the labor of others. This atom of humanity 
 (how infinitesimal this drop in the ocean of humanity!) was feel- 
 ing the nameless longing of expanding personality. He had declared 
 rebellion against laws that were survivals of hate and prejudice. 
 He had exposed also the native spring of the emigrant by uttering 
 the feeling that it is better to be an equal among peasants than a 
 servant before nobles. 
 
 "So I have good reasons f'r liking the country," Rob resumed, 
 in a quiet way. "The soil is rich, the climate good so far, an' if I 
 have a couple o' decent crops you'll see a neat upright goin' up 
 here, with a porch and a bay-winder." 
 
 "And you'll still be living here alone, frying leathery slapjacks 
 an' chopping 'taters and bacon." 
 
 "I think I see myself," drawled Rob, "goin' around all summer 
 wearin' the same shirt without washin', an' wipin' on the same 
 towel four straight weeks, an' wearin' holes in my socks, an' 
 eatin' musty gingersnaps, mouldy bacon, an' canned Boston beans 
 f'r the rest o' my endurin' days! Oh, yes; I guess not!" He rose. 
 "Well, see y' later. Must go water my bulls." 
 
 As he went off down the slope, Seagraves smiled to hear him 
 sing: 
 
 "I wish that some kind-hearted girl 
 
 Would pity on me take, 
 
 And extricate me from the mess I'm in. 
 
 The angel — how I'd bless her. 
 
 If this her home she'd make. 
 
 In my little old sod shanty on the plain." 
 
 The boys nearly fell off their chairs in the Western House 
 dining room, a few days later, when Rob came in to supper with a 
 collar and necktie as the finishing touch of a remarkable outfit. 
 
94 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Hit him, somebody!" 
 
 "It's a clean collar!" 
 
 "He's started f'r Congress!" 
 
 "He's going to get married," put in Seagraves, in a tone that 
 brought conviction. 
 
 "What!" screamed Jack Adams, O'Neill, and Wilson, in one 
 breath. "That man?" 
 
 "That man," replied Seagraves, amazed at Rob, vi^ho coolly took 
 his seat, squared his elbows, pressed his collar down at the back, 
 and called for the bacon and eggs. 
 
 The crowd stared at him in a dead silence. 
 
 "Where's he going to do it?" asked Jack Adams. "Where's he 
 going to find a girl ?" 
 
 "Ask him," said Seagraves. 
 
 "I ain't tellin'," put in Rob, with his mouth full of potato. 
 
 "You're afraid of our competition." 
 
 "That's right; our competition. Jack; not your competition. 
 Come, now, Rob, tell us where you found her." 
 
 "I ain't found her." 
 
 "What! And yet you're goin' away t' get married!" 
 
 "I'm goin' t' bring a wife back with me ten days fr'm date." 
 
 "I see his scheme," put in Jim Rivers. "He's goin' back East 
 somewhere, an' he's goin' to propose to every girl he meets." 
 
 "Hold on!" interrupted Rob, holding up his fork. "Ain't quite 
 right. Every good lookin girl I meet." 
 
 "Well, I'll be blanked!" exclaimed Jack, impressively; "that 
 simply lets me out. Any man with such a cheek ought to " 
 
 "Succeed," interrupted Seagraves. 
 
 "That's what I say," bawled Hank Whiting, the proprietor of 
 the house. "You fellers ain't got any enterprise to yeh. Why don't 
 you go to work an' help settle the country like men? 'Cause y' 
 ain't got no sand. Girls are thicker 'n huckleberries back East. I 
 say it's a dum shame!" 
 
 "Easy, Henry," said the elegant bank-clerk, Wilson, looking 
 gravely about through his spectacles. "I commend the courage and 
 the resolution of Mr. Rodemaker. I pray the lady may not 
 
Among the Corn-Rows 95 
 
 'Mislike him for his complexion, 
 
 The shadowed livery of the burning sun.' " 
 
 "Shakespeare," said Adams, at a venture. 
 
 Wilson turned to Rob. "Brother in adversity, v\rhen do you em- 
 bark another Jason on an untried sea?" 
 
 "Hay!" said Rob, winking at Seagraves. "Oh, I go to-night — 
 night train." 
 
 "And return?" 
 
 "Ten days from date." 
 
 "I'll wager a wedding supper he brings a blonde," said Wilson, 
 his clean-cut, languid speech compelling attention. 
 
 "Oh, come, now, Wilson; that's too thin! We all know that 
 rule about dark marryin' light." 
 
 "I'll wager she'll be tall," continued Wilson. "I'll wager you, 
 friend Rodemaker, she'll be blonde and tall." 
 
 The rest roared at Rob's astonishment and confusion. 
 
 The absurdity of it grew, and they went into spasms of laugh- 
 ter. But Wilson remained impassive, not the twitching of a muscle 
 betraying that he saw anything to laugh at in the proposition. 
 
 Mrs. Whiting and the kitchen-girls came in, wondering at the 
 merriment. Rob began to get uneasy. 
 
 "What is it? What is it?" said Mrs. Whiting, a jolly little 
 matron. 
 
 Rivers put the case. "Rob's on his way back to Wisconsin t' get 
 married, and Wilson has offered to bet him that his wife will be a 
 blonde and tall, and Rob dassent bet!" And they roared again. 
 
 "Why, the idea ! the man's crazy !" said Mrs. Whiting. 
 
 The crowd looked at each other. This was hint enough; they 
 sobered, nodding at each other commiseratingly. 
 
 "Aha! I see; I understand." 
 
 "It's the heat." 
 
 "And the Boston beans." 
 
 "Let up on him, Wilson. Don't badger a poor irresponsible fel- 
 low. I thought something was wrong when I saw the collar." 
 
 "Oh, keep it up !" said Rob, a little nettled by their evident in- 
 tention to have fun with him. 
 
96 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Soothe him — soo-o-o-o-the him!" said Wilson. "Don't be 
 harsh." 
 
 Rob rose from the table. "Go to thunder! You fellows make me 
 tired." 
 
 "The fit is on him again!" 
 
 He rose disgustedly and went out. They followed him in single 
 file. The rest of the town "caught on." Frank Graham heaved an 
 apple at him, and joined the procession. Rob went into the store 
 to buy some tobacco. They all followed, and perched like crows 
 on the counters till he went out ; then they followed him, as before. 
 They watched him check his trunk; they witnessed the purchase 
 of the ticket. The town had turned out by this time. 
 
 "Waupac!" announced the one nearest the victim. 
 
 "Waupac!" said the next man, and the word was passed along 
 the street up town. 
 
 "Make a note of it," said Wilson; "Waupac — a county where 
 a man's proposal for marriage is honored upon presentation. Sight 
 drafts." 
 
 Rivers struck up a song, while Rob stood around, patiently bear- 
 ing the jokes of the crowd : 
 
 "We're lookin' rather seedy now, 
 
 While holdin' down our claims, 
 
 And our vittles are not always of the best. 
 
 And the mice play slyly round us 
 
 As we lay down to -sleep 
 
 In our little old tarred shanties on the claim. 
 
 "Yet we rather like the novelty 
 
 Of livin' in this way. 
 
 Though the bill of fare Is often rather tame ; 
 
 And we're happy as a clam 
 
 On the land of Uncle Sam 
 
 In our little old tarred shanty on the claim.'' 
 
 The train drew up at length, to the immense relief of Rob, whose 
 stoical resignation was beginning to weaken. 
 
 "Don't y' wish y' had sand?" he yelled to the crowd, as he 
 plunged into the car, thinking he was rid of them at last. 
 
Among the Corn-Rows 97 
 
 He was mistaken. Their last stroke was to follow him into the 
 car, nodding, pointing to their heads, and whispering, managing 
 in the half-minute the train stood at the platform to set every 
 person in the car staring at the "crazy man." Rob groaned, and 
 pulled his hat down over his eyes — an action which confirmed his 
 tormentors' words and made several ladies click their tongues in 
 sympathy — "Tick! tick! poor fellow!" 
 
 "All abo-o-o-a-rd\" said the conductor, grinning his apprecia- 
 tion at the crowd, and the train was o&. 
 
 "Oh, won't we make him groan when he gets back!" said Barney, 
 the young lawyer, who sang the shouting tenor. 
 
 "We'll meet him with the timbrel and the harp. Anybody want 
 to wager? I've got two to one on a short brunette," said Wilson. 
 
 II 
 
 "Follow it far enough and it may pass the bend in the river inhere the 
 •water laughs eternally over its shallows." 
 
 A corn-jfield in July is a sultry place. The soil is hot and dry; 
 the wind comes across the lazily murmuring leaves laden with a 
 warm, sickening smell drawn from the rapidly growing, broad-flung 
 banners of the corn. The sun, nearly vertical, drops a flood of 
 dazzling light upon the field over which the cool shadows run, only 
 to make the heat seem the more intense. 
 
 Julia Peterson, faint with hunger, was toiling back and forth 
 between the corn-rows, holding the handles of the double-shovel 
 corn-plough, while her little brother Otto rode the steaming horse. 
 Her heart was full of bitterness, her face flushed with heat, and 
 her muscles aching with fatigue. The heat grew terrible. The corn 
 came to her shoulders, and not a breath seemed to reach her, while 
 the sun, nearing the noon mark, lay pitilessly upon her shoulders, 
 protected only by a calico dress. The dust rose under her feet, and 
 as she was wet with perspiration it soiled her till with a woman's 
 instinctive cleanliness, she shuddered. Her head throbbed danger- 
 ously. What matter to her that the kingbird pitched jovially from 
 the maples to catch a wandering bluebottle fly, that the robin was 
 
98 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 feeding its young, that the bobolink was singing? All these things, 
 if she saw them, only threw her bondage to labor into greater relief. 
 
 Across the field, in another patch of corn, she could see her 
 father — a big, gruff-voiced, wide-bearded Norwegian — at work 
 also with a plough. The corn must be ploughed, and so she toiled 
 on, the tears dropping from the shadow of the ugly sun-bonnet she 
 wore. Her shoes, coarse and square-toed, chafed her feet ; her hands, 
 large and strong, were browned, or, more properly, burnt, on the 
 backs by the sun. The horse's harness "cr^a^-cracked" as he swung 
 steadily and patiently forward, the moisture pouring from his 
 sides, his nostrils distended. 
 
 The field bordered on a road, and on the other side of the road 
 ran a river — a broad, clear, shallow expanse at that point, and the 
 eyes of the boy gazed longingly at the pond and the cool shadow 
 each time that he turned at the fence. 
 
 "Say, Jule, I'm goin' in! Come, can't I? Come — say!" he 
 pleaded, as they stopped at the fence to let the horse breathe. 
 
 "I've let you go wade twice." 
 
 "But that don't do any good. My legs is all smarty, 'cause ol' 
 Jack sweats so." The boy turned around on the horse's back and 
 slid back to his rump. "I can't stand it!" he burst out, sliding off 
 and darting under the fence. "Father can't see." 
 
 The girl put her elbows on the fence and watched her little 
 brother as he sped away to the pool, throwing off his clothes as he 
 ran, whooping with uncontrollable delight. Soon she could hear 
 aim splashing about in the water a short distance up the stream, 
 and caught glimpses of his little shiny body and happy face. How 
 cool that water looked! And the shadows there by the big bass- 
 wood I How that water would cool her blistered feet. An impulse 
 seized her, and she squeezed between the rails of the fence, and 
 stood in the road looking up and down to see that the way was 
 clear. It was not a main-travelled road ; no one was likely to come ; 
 why not? 
 
 She hurriedly took off her shoes and stockings — ^how delicious 
 the cool, soft velvet of the grass! and sitting down on the bank 
 under the great basswood, whose roots formed an abrupt bank, she 
 
Among the Corn-Rows 99 
 
 slid her poor blistered, chafed feet into the water, her bare head 
 leaned against the huge tree-trunk. 
 
 And now, as she rested, the beauty of the scene came to her. Over 
 her the wind moved the leaves. A jay screamed far off, as if 
 answering the cries of the boy. A kingfisher crossed and recrossed 
 the stream with dipping sweep of his wings. The river sang with its 
 lips to the pebbles. The vast clouds went by majestically, far above 
 the tree-tops, and the snap and buzzing and ringing whir of July 
 insects made a ceaseless, slumberous undertone of song solvent of 
 all else. The tired girl forgot her work. She began to dream. This 
 would not last always. Some one would come to release her from 
 such drudgery. This was her constant, tenderest, and most secret 
 dream. He would be a Yankee, not a Norwegian. The Yankees 
 didn't ask their wives to work in the field. He would have a home. 
 Perhaps he'd live in town — perhaps a merchant! And then she 
 thought of the drug clerk in Rock River who had looked at her — 
 A voice broke in on her dream, a fresh, manly voice. 
 
 "Well, by jinks! if it ain't Julia! Just the one I wanted to see!" 
 
 The girl turned, saw a pleasant-faced young fellow in a derby 
 hat and a cutaway suit of diagonals. 
 
 "Bob Rodemaker ! How come " 
 
 She remembered her situation and flushed, looked down at the 
 water, and remained perfectly still. 
 
 "Ain't you goin' to shake hands? Y' don't seem very glad t' see 
 me." 
 
 She began to grow angry. "If you had any eyes, you'd see." 
 
 Rob looked over the edge of the bank, whistled, turned away. 
 "Oh, I see! Excuse me! Don't blame yeh a bit, though. Good 
 weather f 'r corn," he went on, looking up at the trees. "Corn seems 
 to be pretty well forward," he continued, in a louder voice, as he 
 walked away, still gazing into the air. "Crops is looking first-class 
 in Boomtown. Hello! This Otto? H'yare, y' little scamp! Get 
 on to that horse agin. Quick, 'r I'll take y'r skin off an' hang it on 
 the fence. What y' been doin' ?" 
 
 "Ben in swimmin'. Jimminy, ain't it fun! When 'dy' get back?" 
 said the boy, grinning. 
 
lOo Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Never you mind !" replied Rob, leaping the fence by laying his 
 left hand on the top rail. "Get on to that horse." He tossed the boy 
 up on the horse, and hung his coat on the fence. "I s'pose the ol' 
 man makes her plough, same as usual?" 
 
 "Yup," said Otto. 
 
 "Dod ding a man that'll do that ! I don't mind if it's necessary, 
 but it ain't necessary in his case." He continued to mutter in this 
 way as he went across to the other side of the field. As they turned 
 to come back, Rob went up and looked at the horse's mouth. 
 "Gettin' purty near of age. Say, who's sparkin' Julia now — 
 anybody ?" 
 
 "Nobody 'cept some ol' Norwegians. She won't have them. 
 Por wants her to, but she won't." 
 
 "Good f'r her. Nobody comes t' see her Sunday nights, eh?" 
 
 "Nope; only 'Tias Anderson an* Ole Hoover; but she goes off 
 an' leaves 'em." 
 
 "Chk!" said Rob, starting old Jack across the field. 
 
 It was almost noon, and Jack moved reluctantly. He knew the 
 time of day as well as the boy. He made this round after distinct 
 protest. 
 
 In the meantime Julia, putting on her shoes and stockings, went 
 to the fence and watched the man's shining white shirt as he 
 moved across the corn-field. There had never been any special 
 tenderness between them, but she had always liked him. They 
 had been at school together. She wondered why he had come back 
 at this time of the year, and wondered how long he would stay. 
 How long had he stood looking at her? She flushed again at the 
 thought of it. But he wasn't to blame; it was a public road. She 
 might have known better. 
 
 She stood under a little popple tree, whose leaves shook musically 
 at every zephyr, and her eyes, through half-shut lids, roved over the 
 sea of deep-green, glossy leaves, dappled here and there by cloud 
 shadows, stirred here and there like water by the wind ; and out of 
 it all a longing to be free from such toil rose like a breath, filling 
 her throat and quickening the motion of her heart. Must this go 
 
Among the Corn-Rows roi 
 
 on forever, this life of heat and dust and labor? What did it all 
 mean? 
 
 The girl laid her chin on her strong red wrists, and looked up 
 into the blue spaces between the vast clouds — aerial mountains 
 dissolving in a shoreless azure sea. How cool and sweet and rest- 
 ful they looked ! If she might only lie out on the billowy, snow- 
 white, sunlit edge! The voices of the driver and the ploughman 
 recalled her, and she fixed her eyes again upon the slowly nodding 
 head of the patient horse, on the boy turned half about on his 
 saddle, talking to the white-sleeved man, whose derby hat bobbed 
 up and down quite curiously, like the horse's head. Would she 
 ask him to dinner ? What would her people say ? 
 
 "Phew! it's hot!" was the greeting the young fellow gave as 
 he came up. He smiled in a frank, boyish way, as he hung his hat 
 on the top of a stake and looked up at her. "D' y' know, I kind 
 o' enjoy gettin' at it again? Fact. It ain't no work for a girl, 
 though," he added. 
 
 "When 'd you get back?" she asked, the flush not yet out of her 
 face. Rob was looking at her thick, fine hair and full Scandinavian 
 face, rich as a rose in color, and did not reply for a few seconds. 
 She stood with her hideous sun-bonnet pushed back on her shoul- 
 ders. A kingbird was chattering overhead. 
 
 "Oh, a few days ago." 
 
 "How long y' goin' t' stay?" 
 
 "Oh, I d' know. A week, mebbe." 
 
 A far-off halloo came pulsing across the shimmering air. The 
 boy screamed "Dinner!" and waved his hat with an answering 
 whoop, then flopped off the horse like a turtle off a stone into 
 water. He had the horse unhooked in an instant, and had flung his 
 toes up over the horse's back, in act to climb on, when Rob said: 
 
 "H'yare, young feller! wait a minute. Tired?" he asked the girl, 
 with a tone that was more than kindly. It was almost tender. 
 
 "Yes," she replied, in a low voice. "My shoes hurt me." 
 
 "Well, here y' go," he replied, taking his stand by the horse, 
 and holding out his hand like a step. She colored and smiled a 
 little as she lifted her foot into his huge, hard, sunburned hand. 
 
I02 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Oop-a-daisy !" he called. She gave a spring, and sat on the 
 horse like one at home there. 
 
 Rob had a deliciously unconscious, abstracted, business-like air. 
 He really left her nothing to do but enjoy his company, while he 
 went ahead and did precisely as he pleased. 
 
 "We don't raise much corn out there, an' so I kind o' like to see 
 it once more." 
 
 "I wish I didn't have to see another hill of corn as long as I 
 live!" replied the girl, bitterly. 
 
 "Don't know as I blame yeh a bit. But, all the same, I'm glad 
 you was working in it to-day," he thought to himself, as he walked 
 beside her horse toward the house. 
 
 "Will you stop to dinner?" she inquired bluntly, almost surlily. 
 It was evident there were reasons why she didn't mean to press 
 him to do so. 
 
 "You bet I will," he replied ; "that is, if you want I should." 
 
 "You know how we live," she replied evasively. "If you can 
 stand it, why — " She broke off abruptly. 
 
 Yes, he remembered how they lived in that big, square, dirty, 
 white frame house. It had been three or four years since he had 
 been in it, but the smell of the cabbage and onions, the penetrating, 
 peculiar mixture of odors, assailed his memory as something un- 
 forgettable. 
 
 "I guess I'll stop," he said, as she hesitated. She said no more, 
 but tried to act as if she were not in any way responsible for what 
 came afterward. 
 
 "I guess I c'n stand f'r one meal what you stand all the while," 
 he added. 
 
 As she left them at the well and went to the house he saw her 
 limp painfully, and the memory of her face so close to his lips as he 
 helped her down from the horse gave him pleasure at the same time 
 that he was touched by its tired and gloomy look. Mrs. Peterson 
 came to the door of the kitchen, looking just the same as ever. 
 Broad-faced, unwieldy, flabby, apparently wearing the same dress 
 he remembered to have seen her in years before, — a dirty drab- 
 
Among the Corn-Rows 103 
 
 colored thing, — she looked as shapeless as a sack of wool. Her Eng- 
 lish was limited to, "How de do, Rob?" 
 
 He washed at the pump, while the girl, in the attempt to be 
 hospitable, held the clean towel for him. 
 
 "You're purty well used up, eh?" he said to her. 
 
 "Yes ; it's awful hot out there." 
 
 "Can't you lay off this afternoon? It ain't right." 
 
 "No. He won't listen to that." 
 
 "Well, let me take your place." 
 
 "No ; there ain't any use o' that." 
 
 Peterson, a brawny, wide-bearded Norwegian, came up at this 
 moment, and spoke to Rob in a sullen, gruff way. 
 
 "Hallo, whan yo' gaet back?" 
 
 "To-day. He ain't very glad to see me," said Rob, winking at 
 Julia. "He ain't b'ilin' over with enthusiasm; but I c'n stand it, 
 for your sake," he added, with amazing assurance; but the girl 
 had turned away, and it was wasted. 
 
 At the table he ate heartily of the "bean swaagen," which filled 
 a large wooden bowl in the centre of the table, and which was 
 ladled into smaller wooden bowls at each plate. Julia had tried 
 hard to convert her mother to Yankee ways, and had at last given 
 it up in despair. Rob kept on safe subjects, mainly asking questions 
 about the crops of Peterson, and when addressing the girl, in- 
 quired of the schoolmates. By skillful questioning, he kept the sub- 
 ject of marriage uppermost, and seemingly was getting an inventory 
 of the girls not yet married or engaged. 
 
 It was embarrassing for the girl. She was all too well aware of 
 the difference between her home and the home of her schoolmates 
 and friends. She knew that it was not pleasant for her "Yankee" 
 friends to come to visit her when they could not feel sure of a 
 welcome from the tireless, silent, and grim-visaged old Norse, if, 
 indeed, they could escape insult. Julia ate her food mechanically, 
 and it could hardly be said that she enjoyed the brisk talk of the 
 young man, his eyes were upon her so constantly and his smile so 
 obviously addressed to her. She rose as soon as possible and, going 
 outside, took a seat on a chair under the trees in the yard. She was 
 
104 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 not a coarse or dull girl. In fact, she had developed so rapidly by 
 contact with the young people of the neighborhood that she no 
 longer found pleasure in her own home. She didn't believe in 
 keeping up the old-fashioned Norwegian customs, and her life with 
 her mother was not one to breed love or confidence. She was more 
 like a hired hand. The love of the mother for her "Yulyie" was 
 sincere though rough and inarticulate, and it was her jealousy of 
 the young "Yankees" that widened the chasm between the girl 
 and herself — an inevitable result. 
 
 Rob followed the girl out into the yard, and threw himself on 
 the grass at her feet, perfectly unconscious of the fact that this atti- 
 tude was exceedingly graceful and becoming to them both. He did 
 it because he wanted to talk to her, and the grass was cool and easy ; 
 there wasn't any other chair, anyway. 
 
 "Do they keep up the ly-ceum and the sociables same as ever?" 
 
 "Yes. The others go a good 'eal, but I don't. We're gettin' such 
 a stock round us, and father thinks he needs me s' much, I don't 
 get out often. I'm gettin' sick of it." 
 
 "I sh'd think y' would," he replied, his eyes on her face. 
 
 "I c'd stand the churnin' and housework, but when it comes t' 
 workin' outdoors in the dirt an' hot sun, gettin' all sunburned 
 and chapped up, it's another thing. An' then it seems as if he gets 
 stingier 'n' stingier every year. I ain't had a new dress in — I 
 d'-know-how-long. He says it's all nonsense, an' mother's just about 
 as bad. She don't want a new dress, an' so she thinks I don't." The 
 girl was feeling the influence of a sympathetic listener and was 
 making up for the long silence. "I've tried t' go out t' work, but 
 they won't let me. They'd have t' pay a hand twenty dollars a 
 month f'r the work I do, an' they like cheap help; but I'm not 
 goin' t' stand it much longer, I can tell you that." 
 
 Rob thought she was very handsome as she sat there with her 
 eyes fixed on the horizon, while these rebellious thoughts found 
 utterance in her quivering, passionate voice. 
 
 "Yulie! Kom haar!" roared the old man from the well. 
 
 A frown of anger and pain came into her face. She looked at 
 Rob. "That means more work." 
 
Among the Corn-Rows 105 
 
 "Say! let me go out in your place. Come, now; what's the 
 
 "No ; it wouldn't do no good. It ain't t'-day s' much ; it's every 
 day, and " 
 
 "Yulie !" called Peterson again, with a string of impatient Nor- 
 wegian. "Batter yo' kom pooty hal quick." 
 
 "Well, all right, only I'd like to—" Rob submitted. 
 
 "Well, good-by," she said, with a little touch of feeling. "When 
 d' ye go back?" 
 
 "I don't know. I'll see y' again before I go. Good-by." 
 
 He stood watching her slow, painful pace till she reached the 
 well, where Otto was standing with the horse. He stood watching 
 them as they moved out into the road and turned down toward 
 the field. He felt that she had sent him away ; but still there was a 
 look in her eyes which was not altogether 
 
 He gave it up in despair at last. He was not good at analyses of 
 this nature; he was used to plain, blunt expressions. There was a 
 woman's subtlety here quite beyond his reach. 
 
 He sauntered slowly off up the road after his talk with Julia. 
 His head was low on his breast; he was thinking as one who is 
 about to take a decided and important step. 
 
 He stopped at length, and, turning, watched the girl moving 
 along in the deeps of the corn. Hardly a leaf was stirring; the un- 
 tempered sunlight fell in a burning flood upon the field ; the grass- 
 hoppers rose, snapped, buzzed, and fell; the locust uttered its dry, 
 heat-intensifying cry. The man lifted his head. 
 
 "It's a d — n shame!" he said, beginning rapidly to retrace his 
 steps. He stood leaning on the fence, awaiting the girl's coming 
 very much as she had waited his on the round he had made before 
 dinner. He grew impatient at the slow gait of the horse, and 
 drummed on the rail while he whistled. Then he took off his hat 
 and dusted it nervously. As the horse got a little nearer he wiped 
 his face carefully, pushed his hat back on his head, and climbed 
 over the fence, where he stood with elbows on the middle rail as 
 the girl and boy and horse came to the end of the furrow. 
 
 "Hot, ain't it?" he said, as she looked up. 
 
io6 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Jimminy Peters, it's awful!" puffed the boy. The girl did not 
 reply till she swung the plough about after the horse, and set it 
 upright into the next row. Her powerful body had a superb sway- 
 ing motion at the waist as she did this — a motion which affected 
 Rob vaguely but massively. 
 
 "I thought you'd gone," she said gravely, pushing back her bonnet 
 till he could see her face dewed with sweat, and pink as a rose. 
 She had the high cheek-bones of her race, but she had also their 
 exquisite fairness of color. 
 
 "Say, Otto," asked Rob, alluringly, "wan' to go swimmin'?" 
 
 "You bet," replied Otto. 
 
 "Well, I'll go a round if " 
 
 The boy dropped off the horse, not waiting to hear any more. 
 Rob grinned, but the girl dropped her eyes, then looked away. 
 
 "Got rid o' him mighty quick. Say, Julyie, I hate like thunder t' 
 see you out here ; it ain't right. I wish you'd — I wish " 
 
 She could not look at him now, and her bosom rose and fell with 
 a motion that was not due to fatigue. Her moist hair matted around 
 her forehead gave her a boyish look. 
 
 Rob nervously tried again, tearing splinters from the fence. 
 "Say, now, I'll tell yeh what I came back here for — t' git married ; 
 and if you're willin' I'll do it tonight. Come, now, whaddy y' say?" 
 
 "What've I got t' do 'bout it?" she finally asked, the color 
 flooding her face, and a faint smile coming to her lips. "Go ahead. 
 I ain't got anything " 
 
 Rob put a splinter in his mouth and faced her. "Oh, looky here, 
 now, Julyie! you know what I mean. I've got a good claim out 
 near Boomtown — a rattlin good claim ; a shanty on it fourteen by 
 sixteen — no tarred paper about it, and a suUer to keep butter in, 
 and a hundred acres o' wheat just about ready to turn now. I need 
 a wife." 
 
 Here he straightened up, threw away the splinter, and took off 
 his hat. He was a very pleasant figure as the girl stole a look at 
 him. His black laughing eyes were especially earnest just now. 
 His voice had a touch of pleading. The popple tree over their heads 
 murmured applause at his eloquence, then hushed to listen. A cloud 
 
Among the Corn-Rows 107 
 
 dropped a silent shadow down upon them, and it sent a little thrill 
 of fear through Rob, as if it were an omen of failure. As the girl 
 remained silent, looking away, he began, man-fashion, to desire her 
 more and more, as he feared to lose her. He put his hat on the post 
 again and took out his jack-knife. Her calico dress draped her supple 
 and powerful figure simply but naturally. The stoop in her shoul- 
 ders, given by labor, disappeared as she partly leaned upon the fence. 
 The curves of her muscular arms showed through her sleeve. 
 
 "It's all-fired lonesome f'r me out there on that claim, and it 
 ain't no picnic f'r you here. Now, if you'll come out there with 
 me, you needn't do anything but cook f'r me, and after harvest we 
 can git a good layout o' furniture, an' I'll lath and plaster the house 
 and put a little hell [ell] in the rear." He smiled, and so did she. 
 He felt encouraged to say: "An' there we be, as snug as y' please. 
 We're close t' Boomtown, an' we can go down there to church 
 sociables an' things, and they're a jolly lot there." 
 
 The girl was still silent, but the man's simple enthusiasm came 
 to her charged with passion and a sort of romance such as her hard 
 life had known little of. There was something enticing about this 
 trip to the West. 
 
 "What'll my folks say?" she said at last. 
 
 A virtual surrender, but Rob was not acute enough to see it. 
 He pressed on eagerly: 
 
 "I don't care. Do you? They'll jest keep y' ploughin' corn and 
 milkin' cows till the day of judgment. Come, Julyie, I ain't got no 
 time to fool away. I've got t' get back t' that grain. It's a whoopin' 
 old crop, sure's y'r born, an' that means sompin purty scrumptious 
 in furniture this fall. Come, now." He approached her and laid 
 his hand on her shoulder very much as he would have touched 
 Albert Seagraves or any other comrade. "Whaddy y' say?" 
 
 She neither started nor shrunk nor looked at him. She simply 
 moved a step away. "They'd never let me go," she replied bitterly. 
 "I'm too cheap a hand. I do a man's work an' get no pay at all." 
 
 "You'll have half o' all I c'n make," he put in. 
 
 "How long c'n you wait ?" she asked, looking down at her dress. 
 
 "Just two minutes," he said, pulling out his watch. "It ain't no 
 
io8 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 use t' wait. The old man'U be jest as mad a week from now as he 
 is to-day. Why not go now?" 
 
 "I'm of age in a few days," she mused, wavering, calculating. 
 
 "You c'n be of age to-night if you'll jest call on old Squire 
 Hatfield with me." 
 
 "All right, Rob," the girl said, turning and holding out her hand. 
 
 "That's the talk!" he exclaimed, seizing it. "And now a kiss, to 
 bind the bargain, as the fellah says." 
 
 "I guess we c'n get along without that." 
 
 "No, we can't. It won't seem like an engagement without it." 
 
 "It ain't goin' to seem much like one, anyway," she answered, 
 with a sudden realization of how far from her dreams of courtship 
 this reality was. 
 
 "Say, now Julyie, that ain't fair; it ain't treatin' me right. You 
 don't seem to understand that I like you, but I do." 
 
 Rob was carried quite out of himself by the time, the place, and 
 the girl. He had said a very moving thing. 
 
 The tears sprang involuntarily to the girl's eyes. "Do you mean 
 it? If y' do, you may." 
 
 She was trembling with emotion for the first time. The sincerity 
 of the man's voice had gone deep. 
 
 He put his arm around her almost timidly, and kissed her on 
 the cheek, a great love for her springing up in his heart. "That 
 settles it," he said. "Don't cry, Julyie. You'll never be sorry for 
 it. Don't cry. It kind o' hurts me to see it." 
 
 He hardly understood her feelings. He was only aware that she 
 was crying, and tried in a bungling way to soothe her. But now 
 that she had given way, she sat down in the grass and wept bitterly. 
 
 "Yulyie!" yelled the vigilant old Norwegian, like a distant fog- 
 horn. 
 
 The girl sprang up; the habit of obedience was strong. 
 
 "No; you set right here, and I'll go round," he said. "Otto!" 
 
 The boy came scrambling out of the wood, half dressed. Rob 
 tossed him upon the horse, snatched Julia's sun-bonnet, put his 
 own hat on her head, and moved off down the corn-rows, leaving 
 the girl smiling through her tears as he whistled and chirped to 
 
Among the Corn-Rows 109 
 
 the horse. Farmer Peterson, seeing the familiar sun-bonnet above 
 the corn-rows, went back to his work, with a sentence of Nor- 
 wegian trailing after him like the tail of a kite — something about 
 lazy girls who didn't earn the crust of their bread, etc. 
 
 Rob was wild with delight. "Git up there. Jack! Hay, you old 
 corncrib ! Say, Otto, can you keep your mouth shet if it puts money 
 in your pocket ?" 
 
 "Jest try me 'n' see," said the keen-eyed little scamp. 
 
 "Well, you keep quiet about my bein' here this afternoon, and 
 I'll put a dollar on y'r tongue — ^hay? — ^what? — understand?" 
 
 "Show me y'r dollar," said the boy, turning about and showing 
 his tongue. 
 
 "All right. Begin to practise now by not talkin' to me." 
 
 Rob went over the whole situation on his way back, and when 
 he got in sight of the girl his plan was made. She stood waiting 
 for him with a new look on her face. Her suUenness had given 
 way to a peculiar eagerness and anxiety to believe in him. She was 
 already living that free life in a far-off, wonderful country. No 
 more would her stern father and sullen mother force her to tasks 
 which she hated. She'd be a member of a new firm. She'd work, of 
 course, but it would be because she wanted to, and not because she 
 was forced to. The independence and the love promised grew more 
 and more attractive. She laughed back with a softer light in her 
 eyes, when she saw the smiling face of Rob looking at her from 
 her sun-bonnet. / 
 
 "Now you mustn't do any more o' this," he said. "You go backi; 
 to the house an' tell y'r mother you're too lame to plough any more 
 to-day, and it's gettin' late, anyhow. To-night!" he whispered 
 quickly. "Eleven! Here!" 
 
 The girl's heart leaped with fear. "I'm afraid." 
 
 "Not of me, are yeh ?" 
 
 "No, I'm not afraid of you, Rob." 
 
 "I'm glad o' that. I — I want you — to like me, Julyie; won't 
 you?" 
 
 "I'll try," she answered, with a smile. 
 
no Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "To-night, then," he said, as she moved away. 
 
 "To-night. Good-by." 
 
 "Good-by." 
 
 He stood and watched her till her tall figure was lost among the 
 drooping corn-leaves. There was a singular choking feeling in his 
 throat. The girl's voice and face had brought up so many memories 
 of parties and picknics and excursions on far-off holidays, and at 
 the same time held suggestions of the future. He already felt that 
 it was going to be an unconscionably long time before eleven 
 o'clock. 
 
 He saw her go to the house, and then he turned and walked 
 slowly up the dusty road. Out of the Majrweed the grasshoppers 
 sprang, buzzing and snapping their dull red wings. Butterflies, 
 yellow and white, fluttered around moist places in the ditch, and 
 slender, striped water-snakes glided across the stagnant pools at 
 sound of footsteps. 
 
 But the mind of the man was far away on his claim, building a 
 new house, with a woman's advice and presence. 
 
 It was a windless night. The katydids and an occasional cricket 
 were the only sounds Rob could hear as he stood beside his team 
 and strained his ear to listen. At long intervals a little breeze ran 
 through the corn like a swift serpent, bringing to his nostrils the 
 sappy smell of the growing corn. The horses stamped uneasily as 
 the mosquitoes settled on their shining limbs. The sky was full of 
 stars, but there was no moon. 
 
 "What if she don't come?" he thought. "Or can't come? I can't 
 stand that. I'll go to the old man an' say, 'Looky here — ' Sh !" 
 
 He listened again. There was a rustling in the corn. It was not 
 like the fitful movement of the wind; it was steady, slower, and 
 approaching. It ceased. He whistled the wailing, sweet cry of the 
 prairie-chicken. Then a figure came out into the road — a woman — 
 Julia! 
 
 He took her in his arms as she came panting up to him. 
 
Among the Corn-Rows iii 
 
 "Rob!" 
 "Julyie!" 
 
 A few words, the dull tread of swift horses, the rising of a silent 
 train of dust, and then — the wind wandered in the growing corn, 
 the dust fell, a dog barked down the road, and the katydids sang 
 to the liquid contralto of the river in its shallows. 
 
THE RETURN OF A PRIVATE 
 
 The nearer the train drew toward La Crosse, the soberer the 
 little group of "vets" became. On the long way from New Or- 
 leans they had beguiled tedium with jokes and friendly chafi; or 
 with planning with elaborate detail what they were going to do 
 now, after the war. A long journey, slowly, irregularly, yet per- 
 sistently pushing northward. When they entered on Wisconsin 
 territory they gave a cheer, and another when they reached Madi- 
 son, but after that they sank into a dumb expectancy. Comrades 
 dropped off at one or two points beyond, until there were only four 
 or five left who were bound for La Crosse County. 
 
 Three of them were gaunt and brown, the fourth was gaunt and 
 pale, with signs of fever and ague upon him. One had a great scar 
 down his temple, one limped, and they all had unnaturally large, 
 bright eyes, showing emaciation. There were no hands greeting 
 them at the station, no banks of gayly dressed ladies waving hand- 
 kerchiefs and shouting "Bravo !" as they came in on the caboose of 
 a freight train into the towns that had cheered and blared at them 
 on their way to war. As they looked out or stepped upon the plat- 
 form for a moment, while the train stood at the station, the loafers 
 looked at them indifferently. Their blue coats, dusty and grimy, 
 were too familiar now to excite notice, much less a friendly word. 
 They were the last of the army to return, and the loafers were 
 surfeited with such sights. 
 
 The train jogged forward so slowly that it seemed likely to be 
 midnight before they should reach La Crosse. The little squad 
 grumbled and swore, but it was no use ; the train would not hurry, 
 and, as a matter of fact, it was nearly two o'clock when the en- 
 gine whistled "down brakes." 
 
 All of the group were farmers, living in districts several miles 
 out of the town, and all were poor. 
 
The Return of a Private 113 
 
 "Now, boys," said Private Smith, he of the fever and ague, "we 
 are landed in La Crosse in the night. We've got to stay somewhere 
 till mornin'. Now I ain't got no two dollars to waste on a hotel. 
 I've got a wife and children, so I'm goin' to roost on a bench and 
 take the cost of a bed out of my hide." 
 
 "Same here," put in one of the other men. "Hide'll grow on 
 again, dollars'll come hard. It's going to be mighty hot skirmishin' 
 to find a dollar these days." 
 
 "Don't think they'll be a deptuation of citizens waitin' to 'scort 
 us to a hotel, eh?" said another. His sarcasm was too obvious to 
 require an answer. 
 
 Smith went on, "Then at daybreak we'll start for home — at 
 least, I will." 
 
 "Well, I'll be dummed if I'll tak? two dollars out o' my hide," 
 one of the younger men said. "I'm goin' to a hotel, ef I don't never 
 lay up a cent.'' 
 
 "That'll do f'r you,'' said Smith; "but if you had a wife an' 
 three young uns dependin' on yeh — " 
 
 "Which I ain't, thank the Lord! and don't intend havin' while 
 the court knows itself." 
 
 The station was deserted, chill, and dark, as they came into it at 
 exactly a quarter to two in the morning. Lit by the oil lamps that 
 flared a dull red light over the dingy benches, the waiting room 
 was not an inviting place. The younger man went off to look up a 
 hotel, while the rest remained and prepared to camp down on the 
 floor and benches. Smith was attended to tenderly by the other men, 
 who spread their blankets on the bench for him, and, by robbing 
 themselves, made quite a comfortable bed, though the narrowness 
 of the bench made his sleeping precarious. 
 
 It was chill, though August, and the two men, sitting with bowed 
 heads, grew stiff with cold and weariness, and were forced to rise 
 now and again and walk about to warm their stiffened limbs. It did 
 not occur to -them, probably, to contrast their coming home with 
 their going forth, orxwith the coming home of the generals, colo- 
 nels, or even captains-] but to Private Smith, at any rate, there 
 
114 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 came a sickness at heart almost deadly as he lay there on his hard 
 bed and went over his situation. 
 
 In the deep of the night, lying on a board in the town where he 
 had enlisted three years ago, all elation and enthusiasm gone out 
 I of him, he faced the fact that with the joy of home-coming was 
 ' already mingled the bitter juice of care. He saw himself sick, worn 
 out, taking up the work on his half-cleared farm, the inevitable 
 mortgage standing ready with open jaw to swallow half his earn- 
 ings. He had given three years of his life for a mere pittance of pay, 
 and now ! — 
 
 Morning dawned at last, slowly, with a pale yellow dome of 
 light rising silently above the bluffs, which stand like some huge 
 storm-devastated castle, just east of the city. Out to the left the 
 great river swept on its massive yet silent way to the south. Blue- 
 jays called across the water from hillside to hillside through the 
 clear, beautiful air, and hawks began to skim the tops of the hills. 
 The older men were astir early, but Private Smith had fallen at 
 last into a sleep, and they went out without waking him. He lay 
 on his knapsack, his gaunt face turned toward the ceiling, his hands 
 clasped on his breast, with a curious pathetic effect of weakness and 
 appeal. 
 
 An engine switching near woke him at last, and he slowly sat up 
 and stared about. He looked out of the window and saw that the 
 sun was lightening the hills across the river. He rose and brushed 
 his hair as well as he could, folded his blankets up, and went out 
 to find his companions. They stood gazing silently at the river and 
 at the hills. 
 
 "Looks natcher'l, don't it?" they said, as he came out. 
 
 "That's what it does," he replied. "An' it looks good. D' yeh see 
 that peak ?" He pointed at a beautiful symmetrical peak, rising like 
 a slightly truncated cone, so high that it seemed the very highest of 
 them all. It was touched by the morning sun and it glowed like a 
 beacon, and a light scarf of gray morning fog was rolling up its 
 shadowed side. 
 
 "My farm's just beyond that. Now, if I can only ketch a ride, 
 we'll be home by dinner-time." 
 
The Return of a Private 115 
 
 "I'm talkin' about breakfast," said one of the others. 
 
 "I guess it's one more meal o' hardtack f'r me," said Smith. 
 
 They foraged around, and finally found a restaurant with a 
 sleepy old German behind the counter, and procured some coffee, 
 which they drank to wash down their hardtack. 
 
 "Time'll come," said Smith, holding up a piece by the corner, 
 "when this'll be a curiosity." 
 
 "I hope to God it will! I bet I've chawed hardtack enough to 
 shingle every house in the coolly. I've chawed it when my lampers 
 was down, and when they wasn't. I've took it dry, soaked, and 
 mashed. I've had it wormy, musty, sour, and blue-mouldy. I've had 
 it in little bits and big bits; 'fore coffee an' after coffee. I'm ready 
 f'r a change. I'd like t' git holt jest about now o' some of the hot 
 biscuits my wife c'n make when she lays herself out f'r company." 
 
 "Well, if you set there gabblin', you'll never see yer wife." 
 
 "Come on," said Private Smith. "Wait a moment, boys ; less take 
 suthin'. It's on me." He led them to the rusty tin dipper which 
 hung on a nail beside the wooden water-pail, and they grinned and 
 drank. Then shouldering their blankets and muskets, which they 
 were "takin' home to the boys," they struck out on their last 
 march. 
 
 "They called that coffee Jayvy," grumbled one of them, "but it 
 never went by the road where government Jayvy resides. I reckon 
 I know coffee from peas." 
 
 They kept together on the road along the turnpike, and up the 
 winding road by the river, which they followed for some miles. The 
 river was very lovely, curving down along its sandy beds, pausing 
 now and then under broad basswood trees, or running in dark, 
 swift, silent currents under tangles of wild grapevines, and droop- 
 ing alders, and haw trees. At one of these lovely spots the three vets 
 sat down on the thick green sward to rest, "on Smith's account." 
 The leaves of the trees were as fresh and green as in June, the jays 
 called cheery greetings to them, and kingfishers darted to and fro 
 with swooping, noiseless flight. 
 
 "I tell yeh, boys, this knocks the swamps of Loueesiana into 
 kingdom come." 
 
ii6 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "You bet. All they c'n raise down there is snakes, niggers, and 
 p'rticler hell." 
 
 "An' fighting men," put in the older man. 
 
 "An' fightin' men. If I had a good hook an' line I'd sneak a 
 pick'rel out o' that pond. Say, remember that time I shot that alli- 
 gator " 
 
 "I guess we'd better be crawlin' along," interrupted Smith, ris- 
 ing and shouldering his knapsack, with considerable effort, which 
 he tried to hide. 
 
 "Say, Smith, lemme give you a lift on that." 
 
 "I guess I c'n manage," said Smith, grimly. 
 
 "Course. But, yo' see, I may not have a chance right off to pay 
 yeh back for the times you've carried my gun and hull caboodle. 
 Say, now, gimme that gun, anyway." 
 
 "All right, if yeh feel like it, Jim," Smith replied, and they 
 trudged along doggedly in the sun, which was getting higher and 
 hotter each half-mile. 
 
 "Ain't it queer there ain't no teams comin' along," said Smith, 
 after a long silence. 
 
 "Well, no, seein's it's Sunday." 
 
 "By jinks, that's a fact. It is Sunday. I'll git home in time f'r 
 dinner, sure!" he exulted. "She don't hev dinner usially till about 
 one on Sundays." And he fell into a muse, in which he smiled. 
 
 "Well, I'll git home jest about six o'clock, jest about when the 
 boys are milkin' the cows," said old Jim Cranby. "I'll step into the 
 barn, an' then I'll say: 'Heahl why ain't this milkin' done before 
 this time o' day?' An' then won't they yell!" he added, slapping 
 his thigh in great glee. 
 
 Smith went on. "I'll jest go up the path. Old Rover'U come 
 down the road to meet me. He won't bark ; he'll know me, an' he'll 
 come down waggin' his tail an' showin' his teeth. That's his way 
 of laughin'. An' so I'll walk up to the kitchen door, an' I'll say, 
 'Dinner f'r a hungry man !' An' then she'll jump up, an' " 
 
 He couldn't go on. His voice choked at the thought of it. Saun- 
 ders, the third man, hardly uttered a word, but walked silently 
 behind the others. He had Ipst his wife the first year he was in the 
 
The Return of a Private 1 17 
 
 army. She died of pneumonia, caught in the autumn rains while 
 working in the fields in his place. 
 
 They plodded along till at last they came to a parting of the 
 ways. To the right the road continued up the main valley; to the 
 left it went over the big ridge. 
 
 "Well, boys," began Smith, as they grounded their muskets and 
 looked away up the valley, "here's where we shake hands. We've 
 marched together a good many miles, an' now I s'pose we're done." 
 
 "Yes, I don't think we'll do any more of it f'r a while. I don't 
 want to, I know." 
 
 "I hope I'll see yeh once in a while, boys, to talk over old times." 
 
 "Of course," said Saunders, whose voice trembled a little, too. 
 "It ain't exactly like dyin'." They all found it hard to look at each 
 other. 
 
 "But we'd ought'r go home with you," said Cranby. "You'll 
 never climb that ridge with all them things on yer back." 
 
 "Oh, I'm all right! Don't worry about me. Every step takes me 
 nearer home, yeh see. Well, good-by, boys." 
 
 They shook hands. "Good-by. Good luck!" 
 
 "Same to you. Lemme know how you find things at home." 
 
 "Good-by." 
 
 "Good-by." 
 
 He turned once before they passed out of sight, and waved his 
 cap, and they did the same, and all yelled. Then all marched away 
 with their long, steady, loping, veteran step. The solitary climber 
 in blue walked on for a time, with his mind filled with the kind- 
 ness of his comrades, and musing upon the many wonderful days 
 they had had together in camp and field. 
 
 He thought of his chum, Billy Tripp. Poor Billy! A "minie" 
 ball fell into his breast one day, fell wailing like a cat, and tore a 
 great ragged hole in his heart. He looked forward to a sad scene 
 with Billy's mother and sweetheart. They would want to know all 
 about it. He tried to recall all that Billy had said, and the partic- 
 ulars of it, but there was little to remember, just that wild wailing 
 sound high in the air, a dull slap, a short, quick, expulsive groan, 
 
ii8 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 and the boy lay with his face in the dirt in the ploughed field they 
 were marching across. 
 
 That was all. But all the scenes he had since been through had 
 not dimmed the horror, the terror of that moment, when his boy 
 comrade fell, with only a breath between a laugh and a death- 
 groan. Poor handsome Billy! Worth millions of dollars was his 
 young life. 
 
 These sombre recollections gave way at length to more cheerful 
 feelings as he began to approach his home coolly. The fields and 
 houses grew familiar, and in one or two he was greeted by people 
 seated in the doorways. But he was in no mood to talk, and pushed 
 on steadily, though he stopped and accepted a drink of milk once 
 at the well-side of a neighbor. 
 
 The sun was burning hot on that slope, and his step grew slower, 
 in spite of his iron resolution. He sat down several times to rest. 
 Slowly he crawled up the rough, reddish-brown road, which wound 
 along the hillside, under great trees, through dense groves of jack 
 oaks, with tree-tops far below him on his left hand, and the hills 
 far above him on his right. He crawled along like some minute, 
 wingless variety of fly. 
 
 He ate some hardtack, sauced with wild berries, when he reached 
 the summit of the ridge, and sat there for some time, looking down 
 into his home coolly. 
 
 Sombre, pathetic figure! His wide, round, gray eyes gazing down 
 into the beautiful valley, seeing and not seeing, the splendid cloud- 
 shadows sweeping over the western hills and across the green and 
 yellow wheat far below. His head drooped forward on his palm, 
 his shoulders took on a tired stoop, his cheek-bones showed pain- 
 fully. An observer might have said, "He is looking down upon 
 his own grave." 
 
 H 
 
 Sunday comes in a Western wheat harvest with such sweet am 
 sudden relaxation to man and beast that it would be holy for that 
 reason, if for no other, and Sundays are usually fair in harvest-time. 
 As one goes out into the field in the hot morning sunshine, with no 
 
The Return of a Private 119 
 
 sound abroad save the crickets and the indescribably pleasant silken 
 rustling of the ripened grain, the reaper and the very sheaves in 
 the stubble seem to be resting, dreaming. 
 
 Around the house, in the shade of the trees, the men sit, smoking, 
 dozing, or reading the papers, while the women, never resting, 
 move about at the housework. The men eat on Sundays about the 
 same as on other days, and breakfast is no sooner over and out of 
 the way than dinner begins. 
 
 But at the Smith farm there were no men dozing or reading. 
 Mrs. Smith was alone with her three children, Mary, nine. Tommy, 
 six, and little Ted, just past four. Her farm, rented to a neighbor, 
 lay at the head of a coolly or narrow gully, made at some far-ofi 
 post-glacial period by the vast and angry floods of water which 
 gullied these tremendous furrows in the level prairie — furrows so 
 deep that undisturbed portions of the original level rose like hills 
 on either side, rose to quite considerable mountains. 
 
 The chickens wakened her as usual that Sabbath morning from 
 dreams of her absent husband, from whom she had not heard for 
 weeks. The shadows drifted over the hills, down the slopes, across 
 the wheat, and up the opposite wall in leisurely way, as if, being 
 Sunday, they could take it easy also. The fowls clustered about the 
 housewife as she went out into the yard. Fuzzy little chickens 
 swarmed out from the coops, where their clucking and perpetually 
 disgruntled mothers tramped about, petulantly thrusting their heads 
 through the spaces between the slats. 
 
 A cow called in a deep, musical bass, and a calf answered from 
 a little pen near by, and a pig scurried guiltily out of the cabbages. 
 Seeing all this, seeing the pig in the cabbages, the tangle of grass in 
 the garden, the broken fence which she had mended again and again 
 — the little woman, hardly more than a girl, sat down and cried. 
 The bright Sabbath morning was only a mockery without him ! 
 
 A few years ago they had bought this farm, paying part, mort- 
 gaging the rest in the usual way. Edward Smith was a man of ter- 
 rible energy. He worked "nights and Sundays," as the saying goes, 
 to clear the farm of its brush and of its insatiate mortgage ! In the 
 midst of his Herculean struggle came the call for volunteers, and 
 
I20 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 with the grim and unselfish devotion to his country which made 
 the Eagle Brigade able to "whip its weight in wild-cats," he threw 
 down his scythe and grub-axe, turned his cattle loose, and became 
 a blue-coated cog in a vast machine for killing men, and not thistles. 
 While the millionaire sent his money to England for safe-keeping, 
 this man, with his girl-wife and three babies, left them on a mort- 
 gaged farm, and went away to fight for an idea. It was foolish, 
 but it was sublime for all that. 
 
 That was three years before, and the young wife, sitting on the 
 well-curb on this bright Sabbath harvest morning, was righteously 
 rebellious. It seemed to her that she had borne her share of the 
 country's sorrow. Two brothers had been killed, the renter in 
 whose hands her husband had left the farm had proved a villain; 
 one year the farm had been without crops, and now the overripe 
 grain was waiting the tardy hand of the neighbor who had rented 
 it, and who was cutting his own grain first. 
 
 About six weeks before, she had received a letter saying, "We'll 
 be discharged in a little while." But no other word had come from 
 him. She had seen by the papers that his army was being discharged, 
 and from day to day other soldiers slowly percolated in blue streams 
 back into the State and county, but still her hero did not return. 
 
 Each week she had told the children that he was coming, and she 
 had watched the road so long that it had become unconscious; and 
 as she stood at the well, or by the kitchen door, her eyes were fixed 
 unthinkingly on the road that wound down the coolly. 
 
 Nothing wears on the human soul like waiting. If the stranded 
 mariner, searching the sun-bright seas, could once give up hope of 
 a ship, that horrible grinding on his brain would cease. It was this 
 waiting, hoping, on the edge of despair, that gave Emma Smith no 
 rest. 
 
 Neighbors said, with kind intentions: "He's sick, maybe, an' 
 can't start north just yet. He'll come along one o' these days." 
 
 "Why don't he write?" was her question, which silenced them 
 all. This Sunday morning it seemed to her as if she could not stand 
 it longer. The house seemed intolerably lonely. So she dressed the 
 
The Return of a Private 121 
 
 little ones in their best calico dresses and home-made jackets, and, 
 closing up the house, set ofE down the coolly to old Mother Gray's. 
 
 "Old Widder Gray" lived at the "mouth of the coolly." She 
 was a widow woman with a large family of stalwart boys and 
 laughing girls. She was the visible incarnation of hospitality and 
 optimistic poverty. With Western open-heartedness she fed every 
 mouth that asked food of her, and worked herself to death as 
 cheerfully as her girls danced in the neighborhood harvest dances. 
 
 She waddled down the path to meet Mrs. Smith with a broad 
 smile on her face. 
 
 "Oh, you little dears ! Come right to your granny. Gimme me a 
 kiss! Come right in, Mis' Smith. How are yeh, anyway? Nice 
 mornin', ain't it? Come in an' set down. Everything's in a clutter, 
 but that won't scare you any." 
 
 She led the way into the best room, a sunny, square room, car- 
 peted with a faded and patched rag carpet, and papered with white- 
 and-green wall-paper, where a few faded effigies of dead members 
 of the family hung in variously sized oval walnut frames. The 
 house resounded with singing, laughter, whistling, tramping of 
 heavy boots, and riotous scufflings. Half-grown boys came to the 
 door and crooked their fingers at the children, who ran out, and 
 were soon heard in the midst of the fun. 
 
 "Don't s'pose you've heard from Ed?" Mrs. Smith shook her 
 head. "He'll turn up some day, when you ain't lookin' for 'm." The 
 good old soul had said that so many times that poor Mrs. Smith 
 derived no comfort from it any longer. 
 
 "Liz heard from Al the other day. He's comin' some day this 
 week. Anyhow, they expect him." 
 
 "Did he say anything of " 
 
 "No, he didn't," Mrs. Gray admitted. "But then it was only a 
 short letter, anyhow. Al ain't much for writin', anyhow. — But 
 come out and see my new cheese. I tell yeh, I don't believe I ever 
 had better luck in my life. If Ed should come, I want you should 
 take him up a piece of this cheese." 
 
 It was beyond human nature to resist the influence of that noisy, 
 hearty, loving household, and in the midst of the singing and laugh- ^ 
 
122 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 ing the wife forgot her anxiety, for the time at least, and laughed 
 and sang with the rest. 
 
 About eleven o'clock a wagon-load more drove up to the door, 
 and Bill Gray, the widow's oldest son, and his whole family, from 
 Sand Lake Coolly, piled out amid a good-natured uproar. Every 
 one talked at once, except Bill, who sat in the wagon with his wrists 
 on his knees, a straw in his mouth, and an amused twinkle in his 
 blue eyes. 
 
 "Ain't heard nothin' o' Ed, I s'pose?" he asked in a kind of bel- 
 low. Mrs. Smith shook her head. Bill, with a delicacy very strik- 
 ing in such a great giant, rolled his quid in his mouth, and said : 
 
 "Didn't know but you had. I hear two or three of the Sand Lake 
 boys are comin'. Left New Orleenes some time this week. Didn't 
 write nothin' about Ed, but no news is good news in such cases, 
 mother always says." 
 
 "Well, go put out yer team," said Mrs. Gray, "an' go'n bring 
 me in some taters, an', Sim, you go see if you c'n find some corn. 
 Sadie, you put on the water to bile. Come now, hustle yer boots, all 
 o' yeh. If I feed this yer crowd, we've got to have some raw mate- 
 rials. If y' think I'm goin' to feed yeh on pie — ^you're just mightily 
 mistaken." 
 
 The children went off into the field, the girls put dinner on to 
 boil, and then went to change their dresses and fix their hair. 
 "Somebody might come," they said. 
 
 "Land sakes, / hope not! I don't know where in time I'd set 'em, 
 'less they'd eat at the second table," Mrs. Gray laughed, in pre- 
 tended dismay. 
 
 The two older boys, who had served their time in the army, lay 
 out on the grass before the house, and whittled and talked desul- 
 torily about the war and the crops, and planned buying a threshing- 
 machine. The older girls and Mrs. Smith helped enlarge the table 
 and put on the dishes, talking all the time in that cheery, incoher- 
 ent, and meaningful way a group of such women have, — a conver- 
 sation to be taken for its spirit rather than for its letter, though 
 Mrs. Gray at last got the ear of them all and dissertated at length 
 on girls. 
 
The Return of a Private 123 
 
 "Girls in love ain' no use in the whole blessed week," she said. 
 "Sundays they're a-lookin' down the road, expectin' he'll come. 
 Sunday afternoons they can't think o' nothin' else, 'cause he's here. 
 Monday mornin's they're sleepy and kind o' dreamy and slimpsy, 
 and good f r nothin' on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday they 
 git absent-minded, an' begin to look off toward Sunday agin, an' 
 mope aroun' and let the dishwater git cold, right under their noses. 
 Friday they break dishes, an' go off in the best room an' snivel, an' 
 look out o' the winder. Saturdays they have queer spurts o' workin' 
 like all p'ssessed, an' spurts o' frizzin' their hair. An' Sunday they 
 begin it all over agin." 
 
 The girls giggled and blushed, all through this tirade from their 
 mother, their broad faces and powerful frames anything but sug- 
 gestive of lackadaisical sentiment. But Mrs. Smith said: 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Gray, I hadn't ought to stay to dinner. You've 
 got " 
 
 "Now you set right down! If any of them girls' beaus comes, 
 they'll have to take what's left, that's all. They ain't s'posed to 
 have much appetite, nohow. No, you're goin' to stay if they starve, 
 an' they ain't no danger o' that." 
 
 At one o'clock the long table was piled with boiled potatoes, 
 cords of boiled corn on the cob, squash and pumpkin pies, hot bis- 
 cuit, sweet pickles, bread and butter, and honey. Then one of the 
 girls took down a conch-shell from a nail, and going to the door, 
 blew a long, fine, free blast, that showed there was no weakness of 
 lungs in her ample chest. 
 
 Then the children came out of the forest of corn, out of the 
 creek, out of the loft of the barn, and out of the garden. 
 
 "They come to their feed f'r all the world jest like the pigs when 
 y' holler 'poo-ee !' See 'em scoot !" laughed Mrs. Gray, every wrinkle 
 on her face shining with delight. 
 
 The men shut up their jack-knives, and surrounded the horse- 
 trough to souse their faces in the cold, hard water, and in a few 
 moments the table was filled with a merry crowd, and a row of 
 wistful-eyed youngsters circled the kitchen wall, where they stood 
 first on one leg and then on the other, in impatient hunger. 
 
124 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Now pitch in, Mrs. Smith," said Mrs. Gray, presiding over 
 the table. "You know these men critters. They'll eat every grain 
 of it, if yeh give 'em a chance. I swan, they're made o' India-rub- 
 ber, their stomachs is, I know it." 
 
 "Haf to eat to work," said Bill, gnawing a cob with a swift, 
 circular motion that rivalled a corn-sheller in results. 
 
 "More like workin' to eat," put in one of the girls, with a giggle. 
 "More eat 'n work with you." 
 
 "You needn't say anything, Net. Any one that'll eat seven 
 ears " 
 
 "I didn't, no such thing. You piled your cobs on my plate." 
 
 "That'll do to tell Ed Varney. It won't go down here where we 
 know yeh." 
 
 "Good land ! Eat all yeh want ! They's plenty more in the fiel's, 
 but I can't afford to give you young uns tea. The tea is for us 
 women-folks, and 'specially f'r Mis' Smith an' Bill's wife. We're 
 a-goin' to tell fortunes by it." 
 
 One by one the men filled up and shoved back, and one by one 
 the children slipped into their places, and by two o'clock the women 
 alone remained around the debris-covered table, sipping their tea 
 and telling fortunes. 
 
 As they got well down to the grounds in the cup, they shook 
 them with a circular motion in the hand, and then turned them 
 bottom-side-up quickly in the saucer, then twirled them three or 
 four times one way, and three or four times the other, during a 
 breathless pause. Then Mrs. Gray lifted the cup, and, gazing into 
 it with profound gravity, pronounced the impending fate. 
 
 It must be admitted that, to a critical observer, she had abundant 
 preparation for hitting close to the mark, as when she told the girls 
 that "somebody was comin'." "It's a man," she went on gravely. 
 "He is cross-eyed " 
 
 "Oh, you hush !" cried Nettie. 
 
 "He has red hair, and is death on b'iled corn and hot biscuit." 
 
 The others shrieked with delight. 
 
 "But he's goin' to get the mitten, that red-headed feller is, for I 
 see another feller comin' up behind him." 
 
The Return of a Private 125 
 
 "Oh, lemme see, lemme see!" cried Nettie. 
 
 "Keep off," said the priestess, with a lofty gesture. "His hair is 
 black. He don't eat so much, and he works more." 
 
 The girls exploded in a shriek of laughter, and pounded their 
 sister on the back. 
 
 At last came Mrs. Smith's turn, and she was trembling with 
 excitement as Mrs. Gray again composed her jolly face to what she 
 considered a proper solemnity of expression. 
 
 "Somebody is comin' to you," she said, after a long pause. "He's 
 got a musket on his back. He's a soldier. He's almost here. See ?" 
 
 She pointed at two little tea-stems, which really formed a faint 
 suggestion of a man with a musket on his back. He had climbed 
 nearly to the edge of the cup. Mrs. Smith grew pale with excite- 
 ment. She trembled so she could hardly hold the cup in her hand as 
 she gazed into it. 
 
 "It's Ed," cried the old woman. "He's on the way home. Heav- 
 ens an' earth ! There he is now !" She turned and waved her hand 
 out toward the road. They rushed to the door to look where she 
 pointed. 
 
 A man in a blue coat, with a musket on his back, was toiling 
 slowly up the hill on the sun-bright, dusty road, toiling slowly, with 
 bent head half hidden by a heavy knapsack. So tired it seemed that 
 walking was indeed a process of falling. So eager to get home he 
 Would not stop, would not look aside, but plodded on, amid the 
 cries of the locusts, the welcome of the crickets, and the rustle of 
 the yellow wheat. Getting back to God's country, and his wife and 
 babies ! 
 
 Laughing, crying, trying to call him and the children at the 
 same time, the little wife, almost hysterical, snatched her hat and 
 ran out into the yard. But the soldier had disappeared over the hill 
 into the hollow beyond, and, by the time she had found the chil- 
 dren, he was too far away for her voice to reach him. And, besides, 
 she was not sure it was her husband, for he had not turned his head 
 at their shouts. This seemed so strange. Why didn't he stop to rest 
 at his old neighbor's house ? Tortured by hope and doubt, she hur- 
 ried up the coolly as fast as she could push the baby wagon, the 
 
126 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 blue-coated figure just ahead pushing steadily, silently forward up 
 the coolly. 
 
 When the excited, panting little group came in sight of the gate 
 they saw the blue-coated figure standing, leaning upon the rough 
 rail fence, his chin on his palms, gazing at the empty house. His 
 knapsack, canteen, blankets, and musket lay upon the dusty grass 
 at his feet. 
 
 He was like a man lost in a dream. His wide, hungry eyes de- 
 voured the scene. The rough lawn, the little unpainted house, the 
 field of clear yellow wheat behind it, down across which streamed 
 the sun, now almost ready to touch the high hill to the west, the 
 crickets crying merrily, a cat on the fence near by, dreaming, un- 
 mindful of the stranger in blue 
 
 How peaceful it all was. O God ! How far removed from all 
 camps, hospitals, battle lines. A little cabin in a Wisconsin coolly, 
 but it was majestic in its peace. How did he ever leave it for those 
 years of tramping, thirsting, killing? 
 
 Trembling, weak with emotion, her eyes on the silent figure, 
 Mrs. Smith hurried up to the fence. Her feet made no noise in the 
 dust and grass, and they were close upon him before he knew of 
 them. The oldest boy ran a little ahead. He will never forget that 
 figure, that face. It will always remain as something epic, that re- 
 turn of the private. He fixed his eyes on the pale face covered with 
 a ragged beard. 
 
 "Who are you, sir?" asked the wife, or, rather, started to ask, 
 for he turned, stood a moment, and then cried : 
 
 "Emma!" 
 
 "Edward!" 
 
 The children stood in a curious row to see their mother kiss this 
 bearded, strange man, the elder girl sobbing sympathetically with 
 her mother. Illness had left the soldier partly deaf, and this added 
 to the strangeness of his manner. 
 
 But the youngest child stood away, even after the girl had recog- 
 nized her father and kissed him. The man turned then to the baby, 
 and said in a curiously unpaternal tone : 
 
The Return of a Private 127 
 
 "Come here, my little man ; don't you know me ?" But the baby 
 backed away under the fence and stood peering at him critically. 
 
 "My little man!" What meaning in those words! This baby 
 seemed like some other woman's child, and not the infant he had 
 left in his wife's arms. The war had come between him and his 
 baby — he was only a strange man to him, with big eyes ; a soldier, 
 with mother hanging to his arm, and talking in a loud voice. 
 
 "And this is Tom," the private said, drawing the oldest boy to 
 him. "He'll come and see me. He knows his poor old pap when he 
 comes home from the war." 
 
 The mother heard the pain and reproach in his voice and has- 
 tened to apologize. 
 
 "You've changed so, Ed. He can't know yeh. This is papa, 
 Teddy; come and kiss him — Tom and Mary do. Come, won't 
 you ?" But Teddy still peered through the fence with solemn eyes, 
 well out of reach. He resembled a half-wild kitten that hesitates, 
 studying the tones of one's voice. 
 
 "I'll fix him," said the soldier, and sat down to undo his knap- 
 sack, out of which he drew three enormous and very red apples. 
 After giving one to each of the older children, he said : 
 
 "Now I guess he'll come. Eh, my little man? Now come see your 
 pap." 
 
 Teddy crept slowly under the fence, assisted by the overzealous 
 Tommy, and a moment later was kicking and squalling in his 
 father's arms. Thegjljey entered the house, into the sitting room, 
 poor, bare^-^grNforsakemi little room, too, with its rag carpet, its 
 square clock^-and its two or three chromos and pictures from 
 Harper's Weekly pinned about. 
 
 "Emma, I'm all tired out," said Private Smith, as he flung him- 
 self down on the carpet as he used to do, while his wife brought a 
 pillow to put under his head, and the children stood about munch- 
 ing their apples. 
 
 "Tommy, you run and get me a pan of chips, and Mary, you get 
 the tea-kettle on, and I'll go and make some biscuit." 
 
 And the soldier talked. Question after question he poured forth 
 about the crops, the cattle, the renter, the neighbors. He slipped 
 
128 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 his heavy government brogan shoes off his poor, tired, blistered 
 feet, and lay out with utter, svi^eet relaxation. He was a free man 
 again, no longer a soldier under a command. At supper he stopped 
 once, listened and smiled. "That's old Spot. I know her voice. I 
 s'pose that's her calf out there in the pen. I can't milk her to-night, 
 though. I'm too tired. But I tell you, I'd like a drink of her milk. 
 What's become of old Rove ?" 
 
 "He died last winter. Poisoned, I guess." There was a moment 
 of sadness for them all. It was some time before the husband spoke 
 again, in a voice that trembled a little. 
 
 "Poor old feller ! He'd 'a' known me half a mile away. I expected 
 him to come down the hill to meet me. It 'ud 'a' been more like 
 comin' home if I could 'a' seen him comin' down the road an' wag- 
 gin' his tail, an' laughin' that way he has. I tell yeh, it kind o' took 
 hold o' me to see the blinds down an' the house shut up." 
 
 "But, yeh see, we — ^we expected you'd write again 'fore you 
 started. And then we thought we'd see you if you did come," she 
 hastened to explain. 
 
 "Well, I ain't worth a cent on writin'. Besides, it's just as well 
 yeh didn't know when I was comin'. I tell you, it sounds good to 
 hear them chickens out there, an' turkeys, an' the crickets. Do you 
 know they don't have just the same kind o' crickets down South? 
 Who's Sam hired t' help cut yer grain?" 
 
 "The Ramsey boys." 
 
 "Looks like a good crop; but I'm afraid I won't do much gettin' 
 it cut. This cussed fever an' ague has got me down pretty low. I 
 don't know when I'll get rid of it. I'll bet I've took twenty-five 
 pounds of quinine if I've taken a bit. Gimme another biscuit. I 
 
 tell yeh, they taste good, Emma. I ain't had anything like it 
 
 Say, if you'd 'a' hear'd me braggin' to th' boys about your butter 'n' 
 biscuits I'll bet your ears 'ud 'a' burnt.' 
 
 The private's wife colored with pleasure. "Oh, you're always 
 a-braggin' about your things. Everybody makes good butter." 
 
 "Yes ; old lady Snyder, for instance." 
 
 "Oh, well, she ain't to be mentioned. She's Dutch." 
 
 "Or old Mis' Snively. One more cup o' tea, Mary. That's my 
 
The Return of a Private 129 
 
 girl! I'm feeling better already. I just b'lieve the matter with me is, 
 I'm starved." - ^ 
 
 This was a delicious hour, one long to be remembered. They 
 were like lovers again. But their tenderness, like that of a typical 
 American family, found utterance in tones, rather than in words. 
 He was praising her when praising her biscuit, and she knew it. 
 They grew soberer when he showed where he had been struck, one 
 ball burning the back of his hand, one cutting away a lock of hair 
 from his temple, and one passing through the calf of his leg. The 
 wife shuddered to think how near she had come to being a soldier's 
 widow. Her waiting no longer seemed hard. This sweet, glorious 
 hour effaced it all. 
 
 Then they rose, and all went out into the garden and down to 
 the barn. He stood beside her while she milked old Spot. They 
 began to plan fields and crops for next year. 
 
 His farm was weedy and encumbered, a rascally renter had run 
 away with his machinery (departing between two days), his chil- 
 dren needed clothing, the years were coming upon him, he was sick 
 and emaciated, but his heroic soul did not quail. With the same 
 courage with which he had faced his Southern march he entered 
 upon a still more hazardous future. 
 
 Oh, that mystic hour! The pale man with big eyes standing 
 there by the well, with his young wife by his side. The vast moon 
 swinging above the eastern peaks, the cattle winding down the pas- 
 ture slopes with jangling bells, the crickets singing, the stars bloom- 
 ing out sweet and far and serene; the katydids rhythmically call- 
 ing, the little turkeys crying querulously, as they settled to roost in 
 the poplar tree near the open gate. The voices at the well drop 
 lower, the little ones nestle in their father's arms at last, and Teddy 
 falls asleep there. 
 
 The common soldier of the American volunteer army had re- 
 turned. His war with the South was over, and his fight, his daily 
 running fight with nature and against the injustice of his fellow- 
 men, was begun again. 
 
UNDER THE LION'S PAW 
 
 It was the last of autumn and first day of winter coming to- 
 gether. All day long the ploughmen on their prairie farms had 
 moved to and fro in their wide level fields through the falling 
 snow, which melted as it fell, wetting them to the skin — all day, 
 notwithstanding the frequent squalls of snow, the dripping, desolate 
 clouds, and the muck of the furrows, black and tenacious as tar. 
 
 Under their dripping harness the horses swung to and fro silently, 
 with that marvellous uncomplaining patience which marks the 
 horse. All day the wild geese, honking wildly, as they sprawled side- 
 wise down the wind, seemed to be fleeing from an enemy behind, 
 and with neck outthrust and wings extended, sailed down the wind, 
 soon lost to sight. 
 
 Yet the ploughman behind his plough, though the snow lay on 
 his ragged great-coat, and the cold clinging mud rose on his heavy 
 boots, fettering him like g}rves, whistled in the very beard of the 
 gale. As day passed, the snow, ceasing to melt, lay along the 
 ploughed land, and lodged in the depth of the stubble, till on each 
 slow round the last furrow stood out black and shining as jet 
 between the ploughed land and the gray stubble. 
 
 When night began to fall, and the geese, flying low, began to 
 alight invisibly in the near corn-field, Stephen Council was still at 
 work "finishing a land." He rode on his sulky plough when going 
 with the wind, but walked when facing it. Sitting bent and cold 
 but cheery under his slouch hat, he talked encouragingly to his 
 four-in-hand. 
 
 "Come round there, boys! — Round agin! We got t' finish this 
 land. Come in there, Dan ! Stiddy, Kate, — stiddy ! None o' y'r tan- 
 trums, Kittie. It's purty tuff, but got a be did. Tchk I tchk 1 Step 
 along, Pete! Don't let Kate git y'r single-tree on the wheel. Once 
 
 giore! 
 
 I" 
 
 130 
 
Under the Lion's Paw 131 
 
 They seemed to know what he meant, and that this was the last 
 round, for they worked with greater vigor than before. 
 
 "Once more, boys, an' then, sez I, oats an' a nice warm stall, an' 
 sleep f'r all." 
 
 By the time the last furrow was turned on the land it was too 
 dark to see the house, and the snow was changing to rain again. The 
 tired and hungry man could see the light from the kitchen shining 
 through the leafless hedge, and he lifted a great shout, "Supper f'r 
 a half a dozen !" 
 
 It was nearly eight o'clock by the time he had finished his chores 
 and started for supper. He was picking his way carefully through 
 the mud, when the tall form of a man loomed up before him with 
 a premonitory cough. 
 
 "Waddy ye want?" was the rather startled question of the 
 farmer. 
 
 "Well, ye see," began the stranger, in a deprecating tone, "we'd 
 like t' git in f'r the night. We've tried every house f'r the last two 
 miles, but they hadn't any room f'r us. My wife's jest about sick, 
 'n' the children are cold and hungry " 
 
 "Oh, y' want 'o stay all night, eh ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; it 'ud be a great accom " 
 
 "Waal, I don't make it a practice t' turn anybuddy way hungry, 
 not on sech nights as this. Drive right in. We ain't got much, but 
 sech as it is " 
 
 But the stranger had disappeared. And soon his steaming, weary 
 team, with drooping heads and swinging single-trees, moved past 
 the well to the block beside the path. Council stood at the side of 
 the "schooner" and helped the children out — two little half-sleep- 
 ing children — and then a small woman with a babe in her arms. 
 
 "There ye go!" he shouted jovially, to the children. "Now we're 
 all right ! Run right along to the house there, an' tell Mam' Coun- 
 cil you wants sumpthin' t' eat. Right this way. Mis' — keep right off 
 t' the right there. I'll go an' git a lantern. Come," he said to the 
 dazed and silent group at his side. ' 
 
 "Mother," he shouted, as he neared the fragrant and warmly 
 lighted kitchen, "here are some wayfarers an' folks who need 
 
132 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 sumpthin' t' eat an' a place t' snooze." He ended by pushing them 
 all in. 
 
 Mrs. Council, a large, jolly, rather coarse-looking woman, took 
 the children in her arms. "Come right in, you little rabbits. 'Most 
 asleep, hey? Now here's a drink o' milk f'r each o' ye. I'll have s'm 
 tea in a minute. Take off y'r things and set up t' the fire." 
 
 While she set the children to drinking milk, Council got out his 
 lantern and went out to the barn to help the stranger about his 
 team, where his loud, hearty voice could be heard as it came and 
 went between the haymow and the stalls. 
 
 The woman came to light as a small, timid, and discouraged- 
 looking woman, but still pretty, in a thin and sorrowful way. 
 
 "Land sakes! An' you've travelled all the way from Clear Lake 
 t'-day in this mud ! Waal ! waal ! No wonder you're all tired out. 
 
 Don't wait f'r the men, Mis' " She hesitated, waiting for 
 
 the name. 
 
 "Haskins." 
 
 "Mis' Haskins, set right up to the table an' take a good swig o' 
 tea whilst I make y' s'm toast. It's green tea, an' it's good. I tell 
 Council as I git older I don't seem to enjoy Young Hyson n'r Gun- 
 powder. I want the reel green tea, jest as it comes off'n the vines. 
 Seems t' have more heart in it, some way. Don't s'pose it has. Coun- 
 cil says it's all in m' eye." 
 
 Going on in this easy way, she soon had the children filled with 
 bread and milk and the woman thoroughly at home, eating some 
 toast and sweet-melon pickles, and sipping the tea. 
 
 "See the little rats !" she laughed at the children. "They're full 
 as they can stick now, and they want to go to bed. Now, don't git 
 up. Mis' Haskins; set right where you are an' let me look after 
 'em. I know all about young ones, though I'm all alone now. Jane 
 went an' married last fall. But, as I tell Council, it's lucky we keep 
 our health. Set right there. Mis' Haskins; I won't have you stir a 
 finger." 
 
 It was an unmeasured pleasure to sit there in the warm, homely 
 kitchen, the jovial chatter of the housewife driving out and holding 
 at bay the growl of the impotent, cheated wind. 
 
Under the Lion's Paw 133 
 
 The little woman's eyes filled with tears which fell down upon 
 the sleeping baby in her arms. The world was not so desolate and 
 cold and hopeless, after all. 
 
 "Now I hope. Council won't stop out there and talk politics all 
 night. He's the greatest man to talk politics an' read the Tribune 
 — How old is it?" 
 
 She broke off and peered down at the face of the babe. 
 
 "Two months 'n' five days," said the mother, with a mother's 
 exactness. 
 
 "Ye don't say! I want 'o know! The dear little pudzy-wudzy!" 
 she went on, stirring it up in the neighborhood of the ribs with her 
 fat forefinger. 
 
 "Pooty tough on '00 to go gallivant'n' 'cross lots this way " 
 
 "Yes, that's so; a man can't lift a mountain," said Council, en- 
 tering the door. "Mother, this is Mr. Haskins, from Kansas. He's 
 been eat up 'n' drove out by grasshoppers." 
 
 "Glad t' see yeh! — Pa, empty that wash-basin *n' give him a 
 chance t' wash." 
 
 Haskins was a tall man, with a thin, gloomy face. His hair was a 
 reddish brown, like his coat, and seemed equally faded by the wind 
 and sun, and his sallow face, though hard and set, was pathetic 
 somehow. You would have felt that he had suffered much by the 
 line of his mouth showing under his thin, yellow mustache. 
 
 "Hain't Ike got home yet, Sairy?" 
 
 "Hain't seen 'im." 
 
 "W-a-a-1, set Tight up, Mr. Haskins; wade right into what we've 
 got; 'taint much, but we manage to live on it — she gits fat on it," 
 laughed Council, pointing his thumb at his wife. 
 
 After supper, while the women put the children to bed, Haskins 
 and Council talked on, seated near the huge cooking-stove, the 
 steam rising from their wet clothing. In the Western fashion Coun- 
 cil told as much of his. own life as he drew from his guest. He asked 
 but few questions, but by and by the story of Haskins' struggles 
 and defeat came out. The story was a terrible one, but he told it 
 quietly, seated with his elbows on his knees, gazing most of the 
 time at the hearth. 
 
134 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "I didn't like the looks of the country, anyhow," Haskins said, 
 partly rising and glancing at his wife. "I was ust t' northern In- 
 gyannie, where we have lots o' timber 'n' lots o' rain, 'n' I didn't 
 like the looks o' that dry prairie. What galled me the worst was 
 goin' s' far away acrosst so much fine land layin' all through here 
 vacant." 
 
 "And the 'hoppers eat ye four years, hand runnin', did they?" 
 
 "Eat! They wiped us out. They chawed everything that was 
 green. They jest set around waitin' f'r us to die t' eat us, too. My 
 God! I ust t' dream of 'em sittin' 'round on the bedpost, six feet 
 long, workin' their jaws. They eat the fork-handles. They got 
 worse 'n' worse till they jest rolled on one another, piled up like 
 snow in winter. Well, it ain't no use. If I was t' talk all winter I 
 couldn't tell nawthin'. But all the while I couldn't help thinkin' 
 of all that land back here that nobuddy was usin' that I ought 'o 
 had 'stead o' bein' out there in that cussed country." 
 
 "Waal, why didn't ye stop an' settle here ?" asked Ike, who had 
 come in and was eating his supper. 
 
 "Fep the simple reason that you fellers wantid ten 'r fifteen dol- 
 lars an acre fer the bare land, and I hadn't no money fer that kind 
 o' thing." 
 
 "Yes, I do my own work," Mrs. Council was heard to say in 
 the pause which followed. "I'm a gettin' purty heavy t' be on 
 m' laigs all day, but we can't afford t' hire, so I keep rackin' around 
 somehow, like a foundered horse. S' lame — I tell Council he 
 can't tell how lame I am, f'r I'm jest as lame in one laig as t' other." 
 And the good soul laughed at the joke on herself as she took a 
 handful of flour and dusted the biscuit-board to keep the dough 
 from sticking. 
 
 "Well, I hain't never been very strong," said Mrs. Haskins. 
 "Our folks was Canadians an' small-boned, and then since my last 
 child I hain't got up again fairly. I don't like t' complain. Tim 
 has about all he can bear now — but they was days this week when 
 I jest wanted to lay right down an' die." 
 
 "Waal, now, I'll tell ye," said Council, from his side of the stove, 
 silencing everybody with his good-natured roar, "I'd go down and 
 
Under the Lion's Paw 135 
 
 see Butler, anyway, if I was you. I guess he'd let you have his place 
 purty cheap; the farm's all run down. He's ben anxious t' let t' 
 somebuddy next year. It 'ud be a good chance fer you. Anyhow, 
 you go to bed and sleep like a babe. I've got some ploughing t' do, 
 anyhow, an' we'll see if somethin' can't be done about your case. 
 Ike, you go out an' see if the horses is all right, an' I'll show the 
 folb t' bed." 
 
 When the tired husband and wife were lying under the generous 
 quilts of the spare bed, Haskins listened a moment to the wind in 
 the eaves, and then said, with a slow and solemn tone, 
 
 "There are people in this world who are good enough t' be 
 angels, an' only haflf t' die to he angels." 
 
 II 
 
 Jim Butler was one of those men called in the West "land 
 poor." Early in the history of Rock River he had come into the 
 town and started in the grocery business in a small way, occupying 
 a small building in a mean part of the town. At this period of his 
 life he earned all he got, and was up early and late sorting beans, 
 working over butter, and carting his goods to and from the sta- 
 tion. But a change came over him at the end of the second year, 
 when he sold a lot of land for four times what he paid for it. From 
 that time forward he believed in land speculation as the surest way , 
 of getting rich. Every cent he could save or spare from his trade 
 he put into land at forced sale, or mortgages on land, which were 
 "just as good as the wheat," he was accustomed to say. 
 
 Farm after farm fell into his hands, until he was recognized as 
 one of the leading landowners of the county. His mortgages were 
 scattered all over Cedar County, and as they slowly but surely fell 
 in he sought usually to retain the former owner as tenant. 
 
 He was not ready to foreclose ; indeed, he had the name of being 
 one 0/ *it "easiest" men in the town. He let the debtor off again 
 and again, extending the time whenever possible. 
 
 "I don't want y'r land," he said. "All I'm after is the int'rest on 
 my money — that's all. Now, if y' want 'o stav on the farm, why, 
 
136 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 I'll give y' a good chance. I can't have the land layin' vacant." And 
 in many cases the owner remained as tenant. 
 
 In the meantime he had sold his store ; he couldn't spend time in 
 it ; he was mainly occupied now with sitting around town on rainy 
 days smoking and "gassin' with the boys," or in riding to and from 
 his farms. In fishing-time he fished a good deal. Doc Grimes, Ben 
 Ashley, and Cal Cheatham were his cronies on these fishing excur- 
 sions or hunting trips in the time of chickens or partridges. In win- 
 ter they went to Northern Wisconsin to shoot deer. 
 
 In spite of all these signs of easy life Butler persisted in saying 
 he "hadn't enough money to pay taxes on his land," and was careful 
 to convey the impression that he was poor in spite of his twenty 
 farms. At one time he was said to be worth fifty thousand dollars, 
 but land had been a little slow of sale of late, so that he was not 
 worth so much. 
 
 A fine farm, known as the Higley place, had fallen into his hands 
 in the usual way the previous year, and he had not been able to find 
 a tenant for it. Poor Higley, after working himself nearly to death 
 on it in the attempt to lift the mortgage, had gone off to Dakota, 
 leaving the farm and his curse to Butler. 
 
 This was the farm which Council advised Haskins to apply for ; 
 and the next day Council hitched up his team and drove down to 
 see Butler. 
 
 "You jest let me do the talkin'," he said. "We'll find him wearin' 
 out his pants on some salt barrel somew'ers ; and if he thought you 
 wanted a place he'd sock it to you hot and heavy. You jest keep 
 quiet; I'll fix 'im." 
 
 Butler was seated in Ben Ashley's store telling fish yarns when 
 Council sauntered in casually. 
 
 "Hello, But; lyin' agin, hey?" 
 
 "Hello, Steve! How goes it?" 
 
 "Oh, so-so. Too dang much rain these days. I thought it was 
 goin' t' freeze up f'r good last night. Tight squeak if I get m' 
 ploughin' done. How's farmin' with you these days?" 
 
 "Bad. Ploughin' ain't half done." 
 
Under the Lion's Paw 137 
 
 "It 'ud be a religious idee f r you t' go out an' take a hand 
 y'rself." 
 
 "I don't haff to," said Butler, with a wink. 
 
 "Got anybody on the Higley place ?" 
 
 "No. Know of anybody?" 
 
 "Waal, no; not eggsackly. I've got a relation back t' Michigan 
 who's ben hot an' cold on the idee o' comin' West f r some time. 
 Might come if he could get a good lay-out. What do you talk on 
 the farm?" 
 
 "Well, I d' know. I'll rent it on shares or I'll rent it money 
 rent." 
 
 "Waal, how much money, say?" 
 
 "Well, say ten per cent, on the price — two-fifty." 
 
 "Wall, that ain't bad. Wait on 'im till 'e thrashes?" 
 
 Haskins listened eagerly to this important question, but Council 
 was coolly eating a dried apple which he had speared out of a bar- 
 rel with his knife. Butler studied him carefully. 
 
 "Well, knocks me out of twenty-five dollars interest." 
 
 "My relation'll need all he's got t' git his crops in," said Coun- 
 cil, in the same, indifferent way. 
 
 "Well, all right ; say wait," concluded Butler. 
 
 "All right; this is the man. Haskins, this is Mr. Butler — no rela- 
 tion to Ben — the hardest-working man in Cedar County." 
 
 On the way home Haskins said : "I ain't much better off. I'd like 
 that farm; it's a good farm, but it's all run down, an' so 'm I. I 
 could make a good farm of it if I had half a show. But I can't 
 stock it n'r seed it." 
 
 "Waal, now, don't you worry," roared Council in his ear. "We'll 
 pull y' through somehow till next harvest. He's agreed t' hire it 
 ploughed, an' you can earn a hundred dollars ploughin' an' y' c'n 
 git the seed o' me, an' pay me back when y' can." 
 
 Haskins was silent with emotion, but at last he said, "I ain't got 
 nothin' t' live on." 
 
 "Now, don't you worry 'bout that. You jest make your head- 
 quarters at ol' Steve Council's. Mother'll take a pile o' comfort in 
 havin' y'r wife an' children 'round. Y' see, Jane's married off lately, 
 
138 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 an' Ike's away a good 'eal, so we'll be darn glad t' have y' stop with 
 us this winter. Nex' spring we'll see if y' can't git a start agin." 
 And he chirruped to the team, which sprang forward with the 
 rumbling, clattering wagon. 
 
 "Say, looky here, Council, you can't do this. I never saw " 
 
 shouted Haskins in his neighbor's ear. 
 
 Council moved about uneasily in his seat and stopped his stam- 
 mering gratitude by saying: "Hold on, now; don't make such a 
 fuss over a little thing. When I see a man down, an' things all on 
 top of 'm, I jest like t' kick 'em off an' help 'm up. That's the kind 
 of religion I got, an' it's about the only kind." 
 
 They rode the rest of the way home in silence. And when the 
 red light of the lamp shone out into the darkness of the cold and 
 windy night, and he thought of this refuge for his children and 
 wife, Haskins could have put his arm around the neck of his burly 
 companion and squeezed him like a lover. But he contented himself 
 with saying, "Steve Council, you'll git y'r pay f 'r this some day." 
 
 "Don't want any pay. My religion ain't run on such business 
 principles." 
 
 The wind was growing colder, and the ground was covered with 
 a white frost, as they turned into the gate of the Council farm, and 
 the children came rushing out, shouting, "Papa's come!" They 
 hardly looked like the same children who had sat at the table the 
 night before. Their torpidity, under the influence of sunshine and 
 Mother Council, had given way to a sort of spasmodic cheerfulness, 
 as insects in winter revive when laid on the hearth. 
 
 HI 
 
 Haskins worked like a fiend, and his wife, like the heroic woman 
 that she was, bore also uncomplainingly the most terrible burdens. 
 They rose early and toiled without intermission till the darkness 
 fell on the plain, then tumbled into bed, every bone and muscle 
 aching with fatigue, to rise with the sun next morning to the same 
 round of the same ferocity of labor. 
 
 The eldest boy drove a team all through the spring, ploughing 
 
Under the Lion's Paw 139 
 
 and seeding, milked the cows, and did chores innumerable, in most 
 ways taking the place of a man. 
 
 An infinitely pathetic but common figure — this boy on the Amer- 
 ican farm, where there is no law against child labor. To see him 
 in his coarse clothing, his huge boots, and his ragged cap, as he 
 staggered with a pail of water from the well, or trudged in the 
 cold and cheerless dawn out into the frosty field behind his team, 
 gave the city-bred visitor a sharp pang of sympathetic pain. Yet 
 Haskins loved his boy, and would have saved him from this if he 
 could, but he could not. 
 
 By June the first year the result of such Herculean toil began 
 to show on the farm. The yard was cleaned up and sown to grass, 
 the garden ploughed and planted, and the house mended. 
 
 Council had given them four of his cows. 
 
 "Take 'em an' run 'em on shares. I don't want 'o milk s' many. 
 Ike's away s' much now, Sat'd'ys an' Sund'ys, I can't stand the 
 bother anyhow." 
 
 Other men, seeing the confidence of Council in the newcomer, 
 had sold him tools on time; and as he was really an able farmer, 
 he soon had round him many evidences of his care and thrift. At 
 the advice of Council he had taken the farm for three years, with 
 the privilege of re-renting or buying at the end of the term. 
 
 "It's a good bargain, an' y' want 'o nail it," said Council. "If 
 you have any kind ov a crop, you c'n pay y'r debts, an' keep seed 
 an' bread." 
 
 The new hope which now sprang up in the heart of Haskins 
 and his wife grew almost as a pain by the time the wide field of 
 wheat began to wave and rustle and swirl in the winds of July. 
 Day after day he would snatch a few moments after supper to go 
 and look at it. 
 
 "Have ye seen the wheat t'-day, Nettie?" he asked one night as 
 he rose from supper. 
 
 "No, Tim, I ain't had time." 
 
 "Well, take time now. Le's go look at it." 
 
 She threw an old hat on her head — ^Tommy's hat — and looking 
 
140 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 almost pretty in her thin, sad way, went out with her husband to 
 the hedge. 
 
 "Ain't it grand, Nettie ? Just look at it." 
 
 It was grand. Level, russet here and there, heavy-headed, wide 
 as a lake, and full of multitudinous whispers and gleams of wealth, 
 it stretched away before the gazers like the fabled field of the cloth 
 of gold. 
 
 "Oh, I think — I hope we'll have a good crop, Tim ; and oh, how 
 good the people have been to us!" 
 
 "Yes; I don't know where we'd be t'-day if it hadn't ben f'r 
 Council and his wife." 
 
 "They're the best people in the world," said the little woman, 
 with a great sob of gratitude. 
 
 "We'll be in the field on Monday sure," said Haskins, gripping 
 the rail on the fences as if already at the work of the harvest. 
 
 The harvest came, bounteous, glorious, but the winds came and 
 blew it into tangles, and the rain matted it here and there close to 
 the ground, increasing the work of gathering it threefold. 
 
 Oh, how they toiled in those glorious days! Clothing dripping 
 with sweat, arms aching, filled with briers, fingers raw and bleed- 
 ing, backs broken with the weight of heavy bundles, Haskins and 
 his man toiled on. Tommy drove the harvester, while his father 
 and a hired man bound on the machine. In this way they cut ten 
 acres every day, and almost every night after supper, when the hand 
 went to bed, Haskins returned to the field shocking the bound grain 
 in the light of the moon. Many a night he worked till his anxious 
 wife came out at ten o'clock to call him in to rest and lunch. 
 
 At the same time she cooked for the men, took care of the chil- 
 dren, washed and ironed, milked the cows at night, made the butter, 
 and sometimes fed the horses and watered them while her husband 
 kept at the shocking. 
 
 No slave in the Roman galleys could have toiled so frightfully 
 and lived, for this man thought himself a free man, and that he 
 was working for his wife and babes. 
 
 When he sank into his bed with a deep groan of relief, too tired 
 to change his grimy, dripping clothing, he felt that he was getting 
 
Under the Lion's Paw 141 
 
 nearer and nearer to a home of his own, and pushing the wolf of 
 want a little farther from his door. 
 
 There is no despair so deep as the despair of a homeless man or 
 woman. To roam the roads of the country or the streets of the city, 
 to feel there is no rood of ground on which the feet can rest, to 
 halt weary and hungry outside lighted windows and hear laughter 
 and song within, — these are the hungers and rebellions that drive 
 men to crime and women to shame. 
 
 It was the memory of this homelessness, and the fear of its com- 
 ing again, that spurred Timothy Haskins and Nettie, his wife, to 
 such ferocious labor during that first year. 
 
 IV 
 
 " 'M, yes; 'm, yes; first-rate," said Butler, as his eye took in the 
 neat garden, the pig-pen, and the well-filled barnyard. "You're 
 gitt'n' quite a stock around yeh. Done well, eh ?" 
 
 Haskins was showing Butler around the place. He had not seen 
 it for a year, having spent the year in Washington and Boston 
 with Ashley, his brother-in-law, who had been elected to Congress. 
 
 "Yes, I've laid out a good deal of money durin' the last three 
 years. I've paid out three hundred dollars f'r fencin'." 
 
 "Um — h'm! I see, I see," said Butler, while Haskins went on: 
 
 "The kitchen there cost two hundred ; the barn ain't cost much 
 in money, but I've put a lot o' time on it. I've dug a new well, 
 and I " 
 
 "Yes, yes, I see. You've done well. Stock worth a thousand dol- 
 lars," said Butler, picking his teeth with a straw. 
 
 "About that," said Haskins, modestly. "We begin to feel's if we 
 was gitt'n', a home f'r ourselves ; but we've worked hard. I tell you 
 we begin to feel it, Mr. Butler, and we're goin' t' begin to ease up 
 purty soon. We've been kind o' plannin' a trip back t' her folks 
 after the fall ploughin's done." 
 
 "Eggs-actly !" said Butler, who was evidently thinking of some- 
 thing else. "I suppose you've kind o' calc'lated on stayin' here three 
 years more ?" 
 
142 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Well, yes. Fact is, I think I c'n buy the farm this fall, if you'll 
 give me a reasonable show." 
 
 "Um — ^m ! What do you call a reasonable show ?" 
 
 "Well, say a quarter down and three years' time." 
 
 Butler looked at the huge stacks of wheat, which filled the yard, 
 over which the chickens were fluttering and crawling, catching 
 grasshoppers, and out of which the crickets were singing innumer- 
 ably. He smiled in a peculiar way as he said, "Oh, I won't be hard 
 on yeh. But what did you expect to pay f 'r the place ?" 
 
 "Why, about what you offered it for before, two thousand five 
 hundred, or possibly three thousand dollars," he added quickly, as 
 he saw the owner shake his head. 
 
 "This farm is worth five thousand and five hundred dollars," 
 said Butler, in a careless and decided voice. 
 
 "fVhatl" almost shrieked the astounded Haskins. "What's that? 
 Five thousand? Why, that's double what you offered it for three 
 years ago." 
 
 "Of course, and it's worth it. It was all run down then ; now it's 
 in good shape. You've laid out fifteen hundred dollars in improve- 
 ments, according to your own story." 
 
 "But you had nothin' t' do about that. It's my work an* my 
 money." 
 
 "You bet it was ; but it's my land." 
 
 "But what's to pay me for all my " 
 
 "Ain't you had the use of 'em?" replied Butler, smiling calmly 
 into his face. 
 
 Haskins was like a man struck on the head with a sandbag; he 
 wouldn't think; he stammered as he tried to say: "But — I never'd 
 git the use — You'd rob me ! More'n that : you agreed — ^you prom- 
 ised that I could buy or rent at the end of three years at " 
 
 "That's all right. But I didn't say I'd let you carry off the im- 
 provements, nor that I'd go on renting the farm at two-fifty. The 
 land is doubled in value, it don't matter how; it don't enter into 
 the question; an' now you can pay me five hundred dollars a year 
 rent, or take it on your own terms at fifty-five hundred, or — git 
 out." 
 
Under the Lion's Paw 143 
 
 He was turning away when Haskins, the sweat pouring from his 
 face, fronted him, saying again: 
 
 "But you've done nothing to malce it so. You hain't added a 
 cent. I put it all there myself, expectin' to buy. I worked an' sweat 
 to improve it. I was workin' for myself an' babes " 
 
 "Well, why didn't you buy when I offered to sell? What y' 
 kickin' about?" 
 
 "I'm kickin' about payin' you twice f'r my own things, — my own 
 fences, my own kitchen, my own garden." 
 
 Butler laughed. "You're too green t' eat, young feller. Your 
 improvements ! The law will sing another tune." 
 
 "But I trusted your word." 
 
 "Never trust anybody, my friend. Besides, I didn't promise not 
 to do this thing. Why, man, don't look at me like that. Don't take 
 me for a thief. It's the law. The reg'lar thing. Everybody does it." 
 
 "I don't care if they do. It's stealin' jest the same. You take three 
 thousand dollars of my money — the work o' my hands and my 
 wife's." He broke down at this point. He was not a strong man 
 mentally. He could face hardship, ceaseless toil, but he could not 
 face the cold and sneering face of Butler. 
 
 "But I don't take it," said Butler, coolly "All you've got to do 
 is to go on jest as you've been a-doin', or give me a thousand dol- 
 lars down, and a mortgage at ten per cent on the rest." 
 
 Haskins sat down blindly on a bundle of oats near by, and with 
 staring eyes and drooping head went over the situation. He was 
 under the lion's paw. He felt a horrible numbness in his heprt and 
 limbs. He was hid in a mist, and there was no path out. 
 
 Butler walked about, looking at the huge stacks of grain, and 
 pulling now and again a few handfuls out, shelling the heads in 
 his hands and blowing the chaff away. He hummed a little tune as 
 he did so. He had an accommodating air of waiting. 
 
 Haskins was in the midst of the terrible toil of the last year. He 
 was walking again in the rain and the mud behind his plough ; he 
 felt the dust and dirt of the threshing. The ferocious husking-time, 
 with its cutting wind and biting, clinging snows, lay hard upon 
 
144 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 him. Then he thought of his wife, how she had cheerfully cooked 
 and baked, without holiday and without rest. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of it?" inquired the cool, mocking, 
 insinuating voice of Butler. 
 
 "I think you're a thief and a liar !" shouted Haskins, leaping up. 
 "A black-hearted houn'!" Butler's smile maddened him; with a 
 sudden leap he caught a fork in his hands, and whirled it in the 
 air. "You'll never rob another man, damn ye!" he grated through 
 his teeth, a look of pitiless ferocity in his accusing eyes. 
 
 Butler shrank and quivered, expecting the blow; stood, held 
 hypnotized by the eyes of the man he had a moment before despised 
 ' — a man transformed into an avenging demon. But in the deadly 
 hush between the lift of the weapon and its fall there came a gush 
 of faint, childish laughter and then across the range of his vision, 
 far away and dim, he saw the sun-bright head of his baby girl, as, 
 with the pretty, tottering run of a two-year-old, she moved across 
 the grass of the dooryard. His hands relaxed: the fork fell to the 
 ground; his head lowered. 
 
 "Make out y'r deed an' mor'gage, an' git ofl'n my land, an' 
 don't ye never cross my line agin ; if y' do, I'll kill ye." 
 
 Butler backed away from the man in wild haste, and climbing 
 into his buggy with trembling limbs drove off down the road, leav- 
 ing Haskins seated dumbly on the sunny pile of sheaves, his head 
 sunk into his hands. 
 
THE CREAMERY MAN 
 
 The tin-peddler has gone out of the West. Amiable gossip and 
 sharp trader that he was, his visits once brought a sharp business 
 grapple to the farmer's wife and daughters, after which, as the 
 man of trade was repacking his unsold wares, a moment of cheerful 
 talk often took place. It was his cue, if he chanced to be a tactful 
 peddler, to drop all attempts at sale and become distinctly human 
 and neighborly. 
 
 His calls were not always well received, but they were at their 
 best pleasant breaks of a monotonous round of duties. But he is no 
 longer a familiar spot on the landscape. He has passed into the 
 limbo of the things no longer necessary. His red wagon may be 
 rumbling and rattling through some newer region, but the "Coolly 
 Country" knows him no more. 
 
 "The creamery man" has taken his place. Every afternoon, rain 
 or shine, the wagons of the North Star Creamery in "Dutcher's 
 Coolly" stop at the farmers' windmills to skim the cream from the 
 "submerged cans." His wagon is not gay; it is generally battered 
 and covered with mud and filled with tall cans; but the driver 
 himself is generally young and sometimes attractive. The driver in 
 Molasses Gap, which is a small coolly leading into Dutcher's 
 Coolly, was particularly good-looking and amusing. 
 
 He was aware of his good looks, and his dress not only showed 
 that he was single, but that he hoped to be married soon. He wore 
 brown trousers, which fitted him very well, and a dark blue shirt, 
 which had a gay lacing of red cord in front, and a pair of sus- 
 penders that were a vivid green. On his head he wore a Chinese 
 straw helmet, which was as ugly as anything could conceivably be, 
 but he was as proud of it as he was of his green suspenders. In 
 summer he wore no coat at all, and even in pretty cold weather he 
 
 145 
 
146 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 left his vest on his wagon-seat, not being able to bring himself to 
 the point of covering up the red and green of his attire. 
 
 It was noticeable that the women of the neighborhood always 
 came out, even on wash-day, to see that Claude (his name was 
 Claude Williams) measured the cream properly. There was much 
 banter about this. Mrs. Kennedy always said she wouldn't trust 
 him "fur's you can fling a yearlin' bull by the tail." 
 
 "Now that's the difference between us," he would reply. "I'd 
 trust you anywhere. Anybody with such a daughter as your'n." 
 
 He seldom got further, for Lucindy always said (in substance), 
 "Oh, you go 'long." 
 
 There need be no mystery in the matter. 'Cindy was the girl 
 for whose delight he wore the green and red. He made no secret 
 of his love, and she made no secret of her scorn. She laughed at his 
 green 'spenders and the "red shoestring" in his shirt; but Claude 
 considered himself very learned in women's ways, by reason of two 
 years' driving the creamery wagon, and he merely winked at Mrs. 
 Kennedy when the girl was looking, and kissed his hand at 'Cindy 
 when her mother was not looking. 
 
 He looked forward every afternoon to these little exchanges of 
 wit, and was depressed when for any reason the women folks were 
 away. There were other places pleasanter than the Kennedy farm 
 — some of "the Dutchrnen" had fine big brick houses and finer and 
 bigger barns, but their women were mostly homely, and went 
 around bare-footed and bare-legged, with ugly blue dresses hang- 
 ing frayed and greasy round their lank ribs and big joints. 
 
 "Someway their big houses have a look like a stable when you get 
 close to 'em," Claude said to 'Cindy once. "Their women work so 
 much in the field they don't have any time to fix up — the way you 
 do. I don't believe in women workin' in the fields." He said this 
 looking 'Cindy in the face. "My wife needn't set her foot outdoors 
 'less she's a mind to." 
 
 "Oh, you can talk," replied the girl, scornfully, "but you'd be 
 like the rest of 'em." But she was glad that she had on a clean collar 
 and apron — if it was ironing-day. 
 
 What Claude would have said further 'Cindy could not divine. 
 
The Creamery Man 147 
 
 for her mother called her away, as she generally did when she saw 
 her daughter lingering too long with the creamery man. Claude was 
 not considered a suitable match for Lucindy Kennedy, whose father 
 owned one of the finest farms in the Coolly. Worldly considerations 
 hold in Molasses Gap as well as in Bluff Siding and Tyre. 
 
 But Claude gave little heed to these moods in Mrs. Kennedy. If 
 'Cindy sputtered, he laughed; and if she smiled, he rode on whis- 
 tling till he came to old man Haldeman's, who owned the whole 
 lower half of Molasses Gap, and had one unmarried daughter, who 
 thought Claude one of the handsomest men in the world. She was 
 always at the gate to greet him as he drove up, and forced sections 
 of cake and pieces of gooseberry pie upon him each day. 
 
 "She's good enough — for a Dutchman," Claude said of her, "but 
 I hate to see a woman go around looking as if her clothes would drop 
 off if it rained on her. And on Sundays, when she dresses up, she 
 looks like a boy rigged out in some girl's cast-off duds." 
 
 This was pretty hard on Nina. She was tall and lank and sandy, 
 with small blue eyes, her limbs were heavy, and she did wear her 
 Sunday clothes badly, but she was a good, generous soul, and very 
 much in love with the creamery man. She was not very clean, but 
 then she could not help that; the dust of the field is no respecter 
 of sex. No, she was not lovely, but she was the only daughter of 
 old Ernest Haldeman, and the old man was not very strong. 
 
 Claude was the daily bulletin of the Gap. He knew whose cow 
 died the night before, who was at the strawberry dance, and all 
 about Abe Anderson's night in jail up at the Siding. If his coming 
 was welcome to the Kennedy's, who took the Blujf Siding Gimlet 
 and the county paper, how much the more cordial ought his greet- 
 ing to be at Haldeman's, where they only took the Milwaukee 
 Weekly Freiheit. 
 
 Nina in her poor way had longings and aspirations. She wanted 
 to marry "a Yankee," and not one of her own kind. She had a little 
 schooling obtained at the small brick shed under the towering Cot- 
 tonwood tree at the corner of her father's farm; but her life had 
 been one of hard work and mighty little play. Her parents spoke 
 in German about the farm, and could speak English only very 
 
148 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 brokenly. Her only brother had adventured into the foreign parts 
 of Pine County, and had been killed in a sawmill. Her life was 
 lonely and hard. 
 
 She had suitors among the Germans, plenty of them, but she had 
 a disgust of them — considered as possible husbands — and though 
 she went to their beery dances occasionally, she had always in her 
 mind the ease, lightness, and color of Claude. She knew that the 
 Yankee girls did not work in the fields, — even the Norwegian girls 
 seldom did so now, they worked out in town, — but she had been 
 brought up to hoe and pull weeds from her childhood, and her 
 father and mother considered it good for her, and being a gentle 
 and obedient child, she still continued to do as she was told. Claude 
 pitied the girl, and used to talk with her, during his short stay, in 
 his cheeriest manner. 
 
 "Hello, Nina! How you vass, ain't it? How much cream already 
 you got this morning? Did you hear the news, not?" 
 
 "No, vot hass happened ?" 
 
 "Everything. Frank McVey's horse stepped through the bridge 
 and broke his leg, and he's going to sue the county — mean Frank 
 is, not the horse." 
 
 "Issdotso?" 
 
 "Sure ! and Bill Hetner had a fight, and Julia Doorflinger's got 
 home." 
 
 "Vot wass Bill fightding apoudt?" 
 
 "Oh, drunk — fighting for exercise. Hain't got a fresh pie 
 cut?" 
 
 Her face lighted up, and she turned so suddenly to go that her 
 bare leg showed below her dress. Her unstockinged feet were thrust 
 into coarse working shoes. Claude wrinkled his nose in disgust, 
 but he took the piece of green currant pie on the palm of his hand 
 and bit the acute angle from it. 
 
 "First rate. You do make lickin' good pies," he said, out of pure 
 kindness of heart ; and Nina was radiant. 
 
 "She wouldn't be so bad-lookin' if they didn't work her in the 
 fields like a horse," he said to himself as he drove away. 
 
 The neighbors were well aware of Nina's devotion, and Mrs. 
 
The Creamery Man 149 
 
 Smith, who lived two or three houses down the road, said, "Good- 
 evening, Claude. Seen Nina today?" 
 
 "Sure ! and she gave me a piece of currant pie — her own make." 
 "Did you eat it ?" 
 
 "Did I ? I guess yes. I ain't refusin' pie from Nina — ^not while 
 her pa has five hundred acres of the best land in Molasses Gap." 
 
 Now, it was this innocent joking on his part that started all 
 Claude's trouble. Mrs. Smith called a couple of days later, and had 
 her joke with 'Cindy. 
 
 " 'Cindy, your cake's all dough." 
 "Why, what's the matter now?" 
 
 "Claude come along t'other day grinnin' from ear to ear, and 
 some currant pie in his musstache. He had jest fixed it up with 
 Nina. He jest as much as said he was after the old man's acres." 
 "Well, let him have 'em. I don't know as it interests me," re- 
 plied 'Cindy, waving her head like a banner. "If he wants to sell 
 himself to that greasy Dutchwoman — ^why, let him, that's all! I 
 don't care." 
 
 Her heated manner betrayed her to Mrs. Smith, who laughed 
 with huge enjoyment. 
 
 "Well, you better watch out!" 
 
 The next day was very warm, and when Claude drove up under 
 the shade of the big maples he was ready for a chat while his horses 
 rested, but 'Cindy was nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Kennedy came 
 out to get the amount of the skimming, and started to reenter the 
 house without talk. 
 
 "Where's the young folks?" asked Claude carelessly. 
 "If you mean Lucindy, she's in the house." 
 "Ain't sick or nothin', is she ?" 
 
 "Not that anybody knows of. Don't expect her to be here to gass 
 with you every time, do ye?" 
 
 "Well, I wouldn't mind," replied Claude. He was too keen not 
 to see his chance. "In fact, I'd like to have her with me all the time, 
 Mrs. Kennedy," he said, with engaging frankness. 
 
 "Well, you can't have her," the mother replied ungraciously. 
 "What's the matter with me?" 
 
150 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Oh, I like you well enough, but 'Cindy'd be a big fool to marry 
 a man without a roof to cover his head." 
 
 "That's where you take your inning, sure," Claude replied. "I'm 
 not much better than a hired hand. Well, now, see here, I'm going 
 to make a strike one of these days, and then — look out for me ! You 
 don't know but what I've invested in a gold mine. I may be a Dutch 
 lord in disguise. Better not be brash." 
 
 Mrs. Kennedy's sourness could not stand against such sweetness 
 and drollery. She smiled in wry fashion. "You'd better be moving, 
 or you'll be late." 
 
 "Sure enough. If I only had you for a mother-in-law — that's 
 why I'm so poor. Nobody to keep me moving. If I had some one to 
 do the talking for me, I'd work." He grinned broadly and drove 
 out. 
 
 His irritation led him to say some things to Nina which he 
 would not have thought of saying the day before. She had been 
 working in the field, and had dropped her hoe to see him. 
 
 "Say, Nina, I wouldn't work outdoors such a day as this if I was 
 you. I'd tell the old man to go to thunder, and I'd go in and wash 
 up and look decent. Yankee women don't do that kind of work, 
 and your old dad's rich; no use of your sweatin' around a corn- 
 field with a hoe in your hands. I don't like to see a woman goin' 
 round without stockin's, and her hands all chapped and calloused. 
 It ain't accordin' to Hoyle. No, sir! I wouldn't stand it. I'd serve 
 an injunction on the old man right now." 
 
 A dull, slow flush crept into the girl's face and she put one hand 
 over the other as they rested on the fence. One looked so much less 
 monstrous than two. 
 
 Claude went on, "Yes, sir ! I'd brace up and go to Yankee meet- 
 ing instead of Dutch; you'd pick up a Yankee beaM like as not." 
 
 He gathered his cream while she stood silently by, and when he 
 looked at her again she was in deep thought. 
 
 "Good-day," he said cheerily. 
 
 "Good-by," she replied, and her face flushed again. 
 
 It rained that night and the roads were very bad, and he was 
 late the next time he arrived at Haldeman's. Nina came out in 'her 
 
The Creamery Man 15I 
 
 best dress, but he said nothing about it, supposing she was going 
 to town or something like that, and he hurried through with his 
 task and had mounted his seat before he realized that anything was 
 wrong. 
 
 Then Mrs. Haldeman appeared at the kitchen door and hurled 
 a lot of unintelligible German at him. He knew she was mad, and 
 mad at him, and also at Nina, for she shook her fist at them 
 alternately. 
 
 Singular to tell, Nina paid no attention to her mother's sputter. 
 She looked at Claude with a certain timid audacity. 
 
 "How you like me to-day?" 
 
 "That's better," he said, as he eyed her critically. "Now you're 
 talkin'! I'd do a little reading of the newspaper myself, if I was. 
 you. A woman's business ain't to work out in the hot sun — it's to 
 cook and fix up things round the house, and then put on her clean 
 dress and set in the shade and read or sew on something. Stand up 
 to 'em! doggone me if I'd paddle round that hot corn-field with a 
 mess o' Dutchmen — it ain't decent !" 
 
 He drove off with a chuckle at the old man, who was seated at 
 the back of the house with a newspaper in his hand. He was lame, 
 or pretended he was, and made his wife and daughter wait upon 
 him. Claude had no conception of what was working in Nina's 
 mind, but he could not help observing the changes for the better in 
 her appearance. Each day he called she was neatly dressed, and 
 wore her shoes laced up to the very top hook. 
 
 She was passing through tribulation on his account, but she said 
 nothing about it. The old man, her father, no longer spoke to her, 
 and the mother sputtered continually, but the girl seemed sustained 
 by some inner power. She calmly went about doing as she pleased, 
 and no fury of words could check her or turn her aside. 
 
 Her hands grew smooth and supple once more, and her face lost 
 the parboiled look it once had. 
 
 Claude noticed all these gains, and commented on them with the 
 freedom of a man who had established friendly relations with a 
 chad. 
 
 "I tell you what, Nina, you're coming along, sure. Next ground 
 
152 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 hop you'll be wearin' silk stockin's and high-heeled shoes. How's 
 the old man? Still mad?" 
 
 "He don't speak to me no more. My mudder says I am a big 
 fool." 
 
 "She does? Well, you tell her I think you're just getting 
 sensible." 
 
 She smiled again, and there was a subtle quality in the mixture 
 of boldness and timidity of her manner. His praise was so sweet 
 and stimulating. 
 
 "I sold my pigs," she said. "The old man, he wass madt, but I 
 didn't mind. I pought me a new dress with the money." 
 
 "That's right ! I like to see a woman have plenty of new dresses," 
 Claude replied. He was really enjoying the girl's rebellion and 
 growing womanliness. 
 
 Meanwhile his own affairs with Lucindy were in a bad way. 
 He seldom saw her now. Mrs. Smith was careful to convey to her 
 that Claude stopped longer than was necessary at Haldeman's, 
 and so Mrs. Kennedy attended to the matter of recording the 
 cream. Kennedy himself was always in the field, and Claude had 
 no opportunity for a conversation with him, as he very much wished 
 to have. Once, when he saw 'Cindy in the kitchen at work, he left 
 his team to rest in the shade and sauntered to the door and looked in. 
 
 She was kneading out cake dough, and she looked the loveliest 
 thing he had ever seen. Her sleeves were rolled up. Her neat 
 brown dress was covered with a big apron, and her collar was open 
 a little at the throat, for it was warm in the kitchen. She frowned 
 when she saw him. 
 
 He began jocularly. "Oh, thank you, I can wait till it bakes. No 
 trouble at all." 
 
 "Well, it's a good deal of trouble to me to have you standin' 
 there gappin' at me !" 
 
 "Ain't gappin' at you. I'm waitin' for the pie." 
 
 "'Tain't pie; it's cake." 
 
 "Oh, well, cake'll do for a change. Say, 'Cindy — " 
 
 "Don't call me 'Cindy!" 
 
The Creamery Man 153 
 
 "Well, Lucindy. It's mighty lonesome when I don't see you on 
 my trips." 
 
 "Oh, I guess you can stand it with Nina to talk to." 
 
 "Aha! jealous, are you?" 
 
 "Jealous of that Dutchwoman ! I don't care who you talk to, and 
 you needn't think it." 
 
 Claude was learned in woman's ways, and this pleased him 
 mightily. 
 
 "Well, when shall I speak to your daddy?" 
 
 "I don't know what you mean, and I don't care." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you do. I'm going to come up here next Sunday in my 
 best bib and tucker, and I'm going to say, 'Mr. Kennedy' — " 
 
 The sound of Mrs. Kennedy's voice and footsteps approaching 
 made Claude suddenly remember his duties. 
 
 "See ye later," he said, with a grin. "I'll call for the cake next 
 time." 
 
 "Call till you split your throat, if you want to," said 'Cindy. 
 
 Apparently this could have gone on indefinitely, but it didn't. 
 Lucindy went to Minneapolis for a few weeks to stay with her 
 brother, and that threw Claude deeper into despair than any- 
 thing Mrs. Kennedy might do or any word Lucindy might say. 
 It was a dreadful blow to him to have her pack up and go so 
 suddenly, and without one backward look at him, and, besides, he 
 had planned taking her to Tyre on the Fourth of July. 
 
 Mr. Kennedy, much better-natured than the mother, told 
 Claude where she had gone. 
 
 "By mighty! That's a knock on the nose for me. When did 
 she go?" 
 
 "Yistady. I took her down to the Siding." 
 
 "When's she coming back?" 
 
 "Oh, after the hot weather is over; four or five weeks." 
 
 "I hope I'll be alive when she returns," said Claude, gloomily. 
 
 Naturally he had a little more time to give to Nina and her 
 remarkable doings, which had set the whole neighborhood to won- 
 dering "what had come over the girl." 
 
 She no longer worked in the field. She dressed better, and had 
 
154 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 taken to going to the most fashionable church in town. She was 
 as a woman transformed. Nothing was able to prevent her steady 
 progression and bloom. She grew plumper and fairer, and became 
 so much more attractive that the young Germans thickened round 
 her, and one or two Yankee boys looked her way. Through it 
 all Claude kept up his half-humorous banter and altogether 
 serious daily advice, without once realizing that anything senti- 
 mental connected him with it all. He knew she liked him, and 
 sometimes he felt a little annoyed by her attempts to please him, 
 but that she was doing all that she did and ordering her whole 
 life to please him never entered his self-sufficient head. 
 
 There wasn't much room left in that head for any one else 
 except Lucindy, and his plans for winning her. Plan as he might, 
 he saw no way of making more than the two dollars a day he 
 was earning as a cream collector. 
 
 Things ran along thus from week to week till it was nearly 
 time for Lucindy to return. Claude was having his top buggy 
 repainted, and was preparing for a vigorous campaign when 
 Lucindy should be at home again. He owned his team and wagon 
 and the buggy — nothing more. 
 
 One Saturday Mr. Kennedy said, "Lucindy's coming home. 
 I'm going down after her to-night." 
 
 "Let me bring her up," said Claude, with suspicious eagerness. 
 
 Mr. Kennedy hesitated. "No, I guess I'll go myself. I want to 
 go to town, anyway." 
 
 Claude was in high spirits as he drove into Haldemans' yard 
 that afternoon. 
 
 Nina was leaning over the fence singing softly to herself, but 
 a fierce altercation was going on inside the house. The walls 
 resounded. It was all Dutch to Claude, but he knew the old 
 people were quarrelling. 
 
 Nina smiled and colored as Claude drew up at the side gate. 
 She seemed not to hear the eloquent discussion inside. 
 
 "What's going on?" asked Claude. 
 
 "Dey tink I am in house." 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
The Creamery Man 155 
 
 "My mudder she lock me up." 
 
 Claude stared. "Locked you up? What for?" 
 
 "She tondt like it dot I come out to see you." 
 
 "Oh, she don't?" said Claude. "What's the matter o' me? I 
 ain't a dangerous chap. I ain't eatin' up little girls." 
 
 Nina went on placidly. "She saidt dot you was goin' to marry 
 me undt get the farm." 
 
 Claude grinned, then chuckled, and at last roared and whooped 
 with the delight of it. He took oif his hat and said: 
 
 "She said that, did she? Why, bless her old cabbage head — " 
 
 The opening of the door and the sudden irruptions of Frau 
 Haldeman interrupted him. She came rushing toward him like a 
 she grizzly bear, uttering a torrent of German expletives, and 
 hurled herself upon him, clutching at his hair and throat. He 
 leaped aside and struck down her hands with a sweep of his hard 
 right arm. As she turned to come again he shouted, —r"^ j 
 
 "Keep off! or I'll knock you down!" 
 
 But before the blow came Nina seized the infuriated woman 
 from behind and threw her down, and held her till the old man 
 came hobbling to the rescue. He seemed a little dazed by it all, 
 and made no efEort to assault Claude. 
 
 The old woman, who was already black in the face with rage, 
 suddenly fell limp, and Nina, kneeling beside her, grew white 
 with fear. 
 
 "Oh, vat is the matter! I haf kildt her!" 
 
 Claude rushed for a bucket of water, and dashed it in the old 
 woman's face. He flooded her with slashings of it, especially after 
 he saw her open her eyes, ending by emptying the bucket in her 
 face. He was a little malicious about that. 
 
 The mother sat up soon, wet, scared, bewildered, gasping. 
 
 "Mein Gott! Mein Gott! Ich bin ertrinken!" 
 
 "What does she say — she's been drinkin'? Well, that looks 
 reasonable." 
 
 "No, no — she thinks she is trouned." 
 
 "Oh, drowned!" Claude roared again. "Not much she ain't. 
 She's only just getting cooled off." 
 
156 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 He helped the girl get her mother to the house and stretch her 
 out on a bed. The old woman seemed to have completely exhausted 
 herself with her effort, and submitted like a child to be waited 
 upon. Her sudden fainting had subdued her. 
 
 Claude had never penetrated so far into the house before, and 
 was much pleased with the neatness and good order of the rooms, 
 though they were bare of furniture and carpets. 
 
 As the girl came out with him to the gate he uttered the most 
 serious word he had ever had with her. 
 
 "Now, I want you to notice," he said, "that I did nothing to 
 call out the old lady's rush at me. I'd 'a' hit her, sure, if she'd 'a' 
 clinched me again. I don't believe in striking a woman, but she 
 was after my hide for the time bein', and I can't stand two such 
 clutches in the same place. You don't blame me, I hope." 
 
 "No. You done choost ride." 
 
 "What do you suppose the old woman went for me for?" 
 
 Nina looked down uneasily. 
 
 "She know you an' me lige one anudder, an' she is afrait you 
 marry me, an' den ven she tie you get the farm a-ready." 
 
 Claude whistled. "Great Jehoshaphat! She really thinks that, 
 does she? Well, dog my cats! What put that idea into her head?" 
 
 "I told her," said Nina calmly. 
 
 "You told her?" Claude turned and stared at her. She looked 
 down, and her face slowly grew to a deep red. She moved un- 
 easily from one foot to the other, like an awkward, embarrassed 
 child. As he looked at her standing like a culprit before him, his 
 first impulse was to laugh. He was not specially refined, but 
 he was a kindly man, and it suddenly occurred to him that the 
 girl was suffering. 
 
 "Well, you were mistaken," he said at last, gently enough. "I 
 don't know why you should think so, but I never thought of 
 marrying you — never thought of it." 
 
 The flush faded from her face, and she stopped swaying. She 
 lifted her eyes to his in a tearful, appealing stare. 
 
 "I t'ought so— you made me t'ink so." 
 
 "I did ? How ? I never said a word to you about — liking you or 
 
The Creamery Man 157 
 
 — marrying — or anything like that. I — " He was going to tell 
 her he intended to marry Lucindy, but he checked himself. 
 
 Her lashes fell again, and the tears began to stream down her 
 cheeks. She knew the worst now. His face had convinced her. , 
 She could not tell him the grounds of her belief — that every time 
 he had said, "I don't like to see a woman do this or that," or, 
 "I like to see a woman fix up around the house," she had con- 
 sidered his words in the light of courtship, believing that in such 
 ways the Yankees made love. So she stood suffering dumbly while 
 he loaded his cream-can and stood by the wheel ready to mount 
 his wagon. 
 
 He turned. "I'm mighty sorry about it," he said. "Mebbe I 
 was to blame. I didn't mean nothing by it — ^not a thing. It was all 
 a mistake. Let's shake hands over it, and call the whole business 
 off." 
 
 He held his hand out to her, and with a low cry she seized it 
 and laid her cheek upon it. He started back in amazement, and 
 drew his hand away. She fell upon her knees in the path and 
 covered her face with her apron, while he hastily mounted his 
 seat and drove away. 
 
 Nothing so profoundly moving had come into his life since the 
 death of his mother, and as he rode on down the road he did a 
 great deal of thinking. First it gave him a pleasant sensation to 
 think a woman should care so much for him. He had lived a 
 homeless life for years, and had come into intimate relations with 
 few women, good or bad. They had always laughed with him 
 (not at him, for Claude was able to take care of himself), and 
 no woman before had taken him seriously, and there was a certain 
 charm about the realization. 
 
 Then he fell to wondering what he had said or done to give 
 the girl such a notion of his purposes. Perhaps he had been too 
 free with his talk. He was so troubled that he hardly smiled once 
 during the rest of his circuit, and at night he refrained from 
 going up town, and sat under the trees back of the creamery, 
 and smoked and pondered on the astounding situation. 
 
 He came at last to the resolution that it was his duty to declare 
 
158 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 himself to Lucindy and end all uncertainty, so that no other 
 woman would fall into Nina's error. He was as good as an en- 
 gaged man, and the world should know it. 
 
 The next day, with his newly painted buggy flashing in the 
 sun, and the extra dozen ivory rings he had purchased for his 
 harnesses clashing together, he drove up the road as a man of 
 leisure and a resolved lover. It was a beautiful day in August. 
 
 Lucindy was getting a light tea for some friends up from the 
 Siding, when she saw Claude drive up. 
 
 "Well, for the land sake!" she broke out, using one of her 
 mother's phrases, "if here isn't that creamery man!" In that 
 phrase lay the answer to Claude's question — if he had heard it. 
 He drove in, and Mr. Kennedy, with impartial hospitality, went 
 out and asked him to 'light and put his team in the barn. 
 
 He did so, feeling very much exhilarated. He never before had 
 gone courting in this direct and aboveboard fashion. He mistook 
 the father's hospitality for compliance in his designs. He followed 
 his host into the house, and faced, with very fair composure, two 
 girls who smiled broadly as they shook hands with him. Mrs. 
 Kennedy gave him a lax hand and a curt how-de-do, and Lucindy 
 fairly scowled in answer to his radiant smile. 
 
 She was much changed, he could see. She wore a dress with 
 puffed sleeves, and her hair was dressed differently. She seemed 
 strange and distant, but he thought she was "putting that on" for 
 the benefit of others. At the table the three girls talked of things 
 at the Siding, and ignored him so that he was obliged to turn 
 to Farmer Kennedy for refuge. He kept his courage up by think- 
 ing, "Wait till we are alone." 
 
 After supper, when Lucindy explained that the dishes would 
 have to be washed, he offered to help her in his best manner. 
 
 "Thank you, I don't need any help," was Lucindy's curt reply. 
 
 Ordinarily he was a man of much facility and ease in address- 
 ing women, but he was vastly disconcerted by her manner. He 
 sat rather silently waiting for the room to clear. When the visitors 
 intimated that they must go, he rose with cheerful alacrity. 
 
 "I'll get your horse for you." 
 
The Creamery Man 159 
 
 He helped hitch the horse into the buggy, and helped the girls 
 in with a return of easy gallantry, and watched them drive oif 
 with joy. At last the field was clear. 
 
 They returned to the sitting room, where the old folks re- 
 mained for a decent interval, and then left the young people alone. 
 His courage returned then, and he turned toward her with resolu- 
 tion in his voice and eyes. 
 
 "Lucindy," he began. 
 
 "Miss Kennedy, please," interrupted Lucindy, with cutting 
 emphasis. 
 
 "I'll be darned if I do," he replied hotly. "What's the matter 
 with you? Since going to Minneapolis you put on a lot of city airs, 
 it seems to me." 
 
 "If you don't like my airs, you know what you can do !" 
 
 He saw his mistake. 
 
 "Now see here, Lucindy, there's no sense in our quarreling.'' 
 
 "I don't want to quarrel ; I don't want anything to do with you. 
 I wish I'd never seen you." 
 
 "Oh, you don't mean that! after all the good talks we've had." 
 
 She flushed red. "I never had any such talks with you." 
 
 He pursued his advantage. 
 
 "Oh, yes, you did, and you took pains that I should see you." 
 
 "I didn't; no such thing. You came poking into the kitchen 
 where you'd no business to be." 
 
 "Say, now, stop fooling. You like me and " 
 
 "I don't. I hate you, and if you don't clear out I'll call father. 
 You're one o' these kind o' men that think if a girl looks at 'em 
 that they want to marry 'em. I tell you I don't want anything 
 more to do with you, and I'm engaged to another man, and I 
 wish you'd attend to your own business. So there. I hope you're 
 satisfied." 
 
 Claude sat for nearly a minute in silence, then he rose. "I 
 guess you're right. I've made a mistake. I've made a mistake in the 
 girl." He spoke with a curious hardness in his voice. "Good- 
 evening, Miss Kennedy." 
 
 He went out with dignity and in good order. His retreat w<^ 
 
i6o Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 not ludicrous. He left the girl with the feeling that she had lost 
 her temper, and with the knowledge that she had uttered a lie. 
 
 He put his horses to the buggy with a mournful self-pity as he 
 saw the wheels glisten. He had done all this for a scornful girl 
 who could not treat him decently. As he drove slowly down the 
 road he mused deeply. It was a knock-down blow, surely. He was 
 a just man, so far as he knew, and as he studied the situation over 
 he could not blame the girl. In the light of her convincing wrath 
 he comprehended that the sharp things she had said to him in the 
 past were not make-believe — not love-taps, but real blows. She 
 had not been coquetting with him; she had tried to keep him 
 away. She considered herself too good for a hired man. Well, 
 m.aybe she was. Anyhow, she had gone out of his reach, hopelessly. 
 
 As he came past the Haldemans' he saw Nina sitting out under 
 the trees in the twilight. On the impulse he pulled in. His mind 
 took another turn. Here was a woman who was open and above- 
 board in her affection. Her words meant what they stood for. 
 He remembered how she had bloomed out the last few months. 
 She has the making of a handsome woman in her, he thought. 
 
 She saw him and came out to the gate, and while he leaned 
 out of his carriage she rested her arms on the gate and looked 
 up at him. She looked pale and sad, and he was touched. 
 
 "How's the old lady?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh, she's up! She is much change-ed. She is veak and quiet." 
 
 "Quiet, is she? Well, that's good." 
 
 "She t'inks God strike her fer her vickedness. Never before did 
 she fainted like dot." 
 
 "Well, don't spoil that notion in her. It may do her a world 
 of good." 
 
 "Der priest come. He saidt it wass a punishment. She saidt I 
 should marry who I like." 
 
 Claude looked at her searchingly. She was certainly much Im- 
 proved. All she needed was a little encouragement and advice and 
 she would make a handsome wife. If the old lady had softened 
 down, her son-in-law could safely throw up the creamery job and 
 
The Creamery Man i6i 
 
 become the boss of the farm. The old man was used up, and the 
 farm needed some one right away. 
 
 He straightened up suddenly. "Get your hat," he said, "and 
 we'll take a ride." 
 
 She started erect, and he could see her pale face glow with joy. 
 
 "With you?" 
 
 "With me. Get your best hat. We may turn up at the minister's 
 and get married — if a Sunday marriage is legal." 
 
 As she hurried up the walk he said to himself, 
 
 "I'll bet it gives Lucindy a shock!" 
 
 And the thought pleased him mightily. 
 
A DAY'S PLEASURE 
 
 When Markham came in from shovelling his last wagon-load 
 of corn into the crib he found that his wife had put the children 
 to bed, and was kneading a batch of dough with the dogged action 
 of a tired and sullen woman. 
 
 He slipped his soggy boots off his feet, and having laid a piece 
 of wood on top of the stove, put his heels on it comfortably. His 
 chair squeaked as he leaned back on its hinder legs, but he paid no 
 attention; he was used to it, exactly as he was used to his wife's 
 lameness and ceaseless toil. 
 
 "That closes up my corn," he said after a silence. "I guess I'll 
 go to town to-morrow to git my horses shod." 
 
 "I guess I'll git ready and go along," said his wife, in a sorry 
 attempt to be firm and confident of tone. 
 
 "What do you want to go to town fer?" he grumbled. 
 
 "What does anybody want to go to town fer?" she burst out, 
 facing him. "I ain't been out o' this house fer six months, while 
 you go an' go!" 
 
 "Oh, it ain't six months. You went down that day I got the 
 mower." 
 
 "When was that? The tenth of July, and you know it." 
 
 "Well, mebbe 'twas. I didn't think it was so long ago. I ain't 
 no objection to your goin', only I'm goin' to take a load of 
 wheat." 
 
 "Well, jest leave off a sack, an' that'll balance me an' the 
 baby," she said spiritedly. 
 
 "All right," he replied good-naturedly, seeing she was roused. 
 "Only that wheat ought to be put up to-night if you're goin'. 
 You won't have any time to hold sacks for me in the morning 
 with them young ones to get off to school." 
 
 "Well, let's go do it then," she said, sullenly resolute. 
 
 162 
 
A Day's Pleasure 163 
 
 "I hate to go out agin; but I s'pose we'd better." 
 
 He yawned dismally and began pulling his boots on again, 
 stamping his swollen feet into them with grunts of pain. She put 
 on his coat and one of the boy's caps, and they went out to the 
 granary. The night was cold and clear. 
 
 "Don't look so much like snow as it did last night," said Sam. 
 "It may turn warm." 
 
 Laying out the sacks in the light of the lantern, they sorted out 
 those which were whole, and Sam climbed into the bin with a 
 tin pail in his hand, and the work began. 
 
 He was a sturdy fellow, and he worked desperately fast; the 
 shining tin pail dived deep into the cold wheat and dragged 
 heavily on the woman's tired hands as it came to the mouth of 
 the sack, and she trembled with fatigue, but held on and dragged 
 the sacks away when filled, and brought others, till at last Sam 
 climbed out, puffing and wheezing, to tie them up. 
 
 "I guess I'll load 'em in the morning,'' he said. "You needn't 
 wait fer me. I'll tie 'em up alone." 
 
 "Oh, I don't mind," she replied, feeling a little touched by 
 his unexpectedly easy acquiescence to her request. When they went 
 back to the house the moon had risen. 
 
 It had scarcely set when they were wakened by the crowing 
 roosters. The man rolled stiffly out of bed and began rattling 
 at the stove in the dark, cold kitchen. 
 
 His wife arose lamer and stiiler than usual, and began twist- 
 ing her thin hair into a knot. 
 
 Sam did not stop to wash, but went out to the barn. The 
 woman, however, hastily soused her face into the hard limestone 
 water at the sink, and put the kettle on. Then she called the chil- 
 dren. She knew it was early, and they would need several call- 
 ings. She pushed breakfast forward, running over in her mind 
 the things she must have : two spools of thread, six yards of cotton 
 flannel, a can of coffee, and mittens for Kitty. These she must 
 have — there were oceans of things she needed. 
 
 The children soon came scudding down out of the darkness of 
 the upstairs to dress tumultuously at the kitchen stove. They 
 
164 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 humped and shivered, holding up their bare feet from the cold 
 floor, like chickens in new fallen snow. They were irritable, and 
 snarled and snapped and struck like cats and dogs. Mrs. Mark- 
 ham stood it for a while with mere commands to "hush up," but 
 at last her patience gave out, and she charged down on the 
 struggling mob and cuffed them right and left. 
 
 They ate their breakfast by lamplight, and when Sam went 
 back to his work around the barnyard it was scarcely dawn. The 
 children, left alone with their mother, began to tease her to let 
 them go to town also. 
 
 "No, sir — ^nobody goes but baby. Your father's goin' to take 
 a load of wheat." 
 
 She was weak with the worry of it all when she had sent the 
 older children away to school and the kitchen work was finished. 
 She went into the cold bedroom off the little sitting room and 
 put on her best dress. It had never been a good fit, and now she 
 was getting so thin it hung in wrinkled folds everywhere about 
 the shoulders and waist. She lay down on the bed a moment to 
 ease that dull pain in her back. She had a moment's distaste for 
 |going out at all. The thought of sleep was more alluring. Then 
 fthe thought of the long, long day, and the sickening sameness of 
 her life, swept over her again, and she rose and prepared the baby 
 for the journey. 
 
 It was but little after sunrise when Sam drove out into the 
 road and started for Belleplain. His wife sat perched upon the 
 wheat-sacks behind him, holding the baby in her lap, a cotton 
 quilt under her, and a cotton horse-blanket over her knees. 
 
 Sam was disposed to be very good-natured, and he talked back 
 at her occasionally, though she could only understand him when 
 he turned his face toward her. The baby stared out at the passing 
 fence-posts, and wiggled his hands out of his mittens at every 
 opportunity. He was merry at least. 
 
 It grew warmer as they went on, and a strong south wind 
 arose. The dust settled upon the woman's shawl and hat. Her hair 
 loosened and blew unkemptly about her face. The road which 
 led across the high, level prairie was quite smooth and dry, but 
 
A Day's Pleasure 165 
 
 still it jolted her, and the pain in her back increased. She had 
 nothing to lean against, and the weight of the child grew greater, 
 till she was forced to place him on the sacks beside her, though 
 she could not loose her hold for a moment. 
 
 The town drew in sight — a cluster of small frame houses and 
 stores on the dry prairie beside a railway station. There were no 
 trees yet which could be called shade trees. The pitilessly severe 
 light of the sun flooded everything. A few teams were hitched 
 about, and in the lee of the stores a few men could be seen seated 
 comfortably, their broad hat-rims flopping up and down, their 
 faces brown as leather. 
 
 Markham put his wife out at one of the grocery-stores, and 
 drove off down toward the elevators to sell his wheat. 
 
 The grocer greeted Mrs. Markham in a perfunctorily kind 
 manner, and offered her a chair, which she took gratefully. She 
 sat for a quarter of an hour almost without moving, leaning 
 against the back of the high chair. At last the child began to get 
 restless and troublesome, and she spent half an hour helping him 
 amuse himself around the nail-kegs. 
 
 At length she rose and went out on the walk, carrying the baby. 
 She went into the dry-goods store and took a seat on one of the 
 little revolving stools. A woman was buying some woollen goods 
 for a dress. It was worth twenty-seven cents a yard, the clerk 
 said, but he would knock off two cents if she took ten yards. It 
 looked warm, and Mrs. Markham wished she could afford it for 
 Mary. 
 
 A pretty young girl came in and laughed and chatted with the 
 clerk, and bought a pair of gloves. She was the daughter of the 
 grocer. Her happiness made the wife and mother sad. When Sam 
 came back she asked him for some money. 
 
 "What you want to do with it?" he asked. 
 
 "I want to spend it," she said. 
 
 She was not to be trifled with, so he gave her a dollar. 
 
 "I need a dollar more." 
 
 "Well, I've got to go take up that note at the bank." 
 
1 66 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Well, the children's got to have some new underclo'es," she 
 said. 
 
 He handed her a two-dollar bill and then went out to pay his 
 note. 
 
 She bought her cotton flannel and mittens and thread, and then 
 sat leaning against the counter. It was noon, and she was hungry. 
 She went out to the wagon, got the lunch she had brought, and 
 took it into the grocery to eat it — ^where she could get a drink of 
 water. 
 
 The grocer gave the baby a stick of candy and handed the mother 
 an apple. 
 
 "It'll kind o' go down with your doughnuts," he said. 
 
 After eating her lunch she got up and went out. She felt 
 ashamed to sit there any longer. She entered another dry-goods 
 store, but when the clerk came toward her saying, "Anything 
 
 to-day, Mrs. ?" she answered, "No, I guess not," and turned 
 
 away with foolish face. 
 
 She walked up and down the street, desolately homeless. She 
 did not know what to do with herself. She knew no one except 
 the grocer. She grew bitter as she saw a couple of ladies pass, hold- 
 ing their demi-trains in the latest city fashion. Another woman 
 went by pushing a baby carriage, in which sat a child just about as 
 big as her own. It was bouncing itself up and down on the long 
 slender springs, and laughing and shouting. Its clean round face 
 glowed from its pretty fringed hood. She looked down at the 
 dusty clothes and grimy face of her own little one, and walked 
 on savagely. 
 
 She went into the drug store where the soda fountain was, 
 but it made her thirsty to sit there and she went out on the street 
 again. She heard Sam laugh, and saw him in a group of men over 
 by the blacksmith shop. He was having a good time and had for- 
 gotten her. 
 
 Her back ached so intolerably that she concluded to go in and 
 rest once more in the grocer's chair. The baby was growing cross 
 and fretful. She bought five cents' worth of candy to take home to 
 the children, and gave baby a little piece to keep him quiet. She 
 
A Day's Pleasure 167 
 
 wished Sam would come. It must be getting late. The grocer said 
 it was not much after one. Time seemed terribly long. She felt 
 that she ought to do something while she was in town. She ran 
 over her purchases — ^yes, that was all she had planned to buy. She 
 fell to figuring on the things she needed. It was terrible. It ran 
 away up into twenty or thirty dollars at the least. Sam, as well as 
 she, needed underwear for the cold winter, but they would have 
 to wear the old ones, even if they were thin and ragged. She 
 would not need a dress, she thought bitterly, because she never 
 went anywhere. She rose and went out on the street once more, 
 and wandered up and down, looking at everything in the hope 
 of enjoying something. 
 
 A man from Boon Creek backed a load of apples up to the 
 sidewalk, and as he stood waiting for the grocer he noticed Mrs. 
 Markham and the baby, and gave the baby an apple. This was a 
 pleasure. He had such a hearty way about him. He on his part 
 saw an ordinary farmer's wife with dusty dress, unkempt hair, 
 and tired face. He did not know exactly why she appealed to 
 him, but he tried to cheer her up. 
 
 The grocer was familiar with these bedraggled and weary 
 wives. He was accustomed to see them sit for hours in his big 
 wooden chair, and nurse tired and fretful children. Their for- 
 lorn, aimless, pathetic wandering up and down the street was a 
 daily occurrence, and had never possesed any special meaning to 
 him. 
 
 II 
 
 In a cottage around the corner from the grocery store two men 
 and a woman were finishing a dainty luncheon. The woman was 
 dressed in cool, white garments, and she seemed to make the day 
 one of perfect comfort. 
 
 The home of the Honorable Mr. Hall was by no means the 
 costliest in the town, but his wife made it the most attractive. 
 He was one of the leading lawyers of the county, and a man of 
 culture and progressive views. He was entertaining a friend who 
 had kctured the night before in the Congregational church. 
 
1 68 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 They were by no means in serious discussion. The talk was 
 rather frivolous. Hall had the ability to caricature men with a 
 few gestures and attitudes, and was giving to his Eastern friend 
 some descriptions of the old-fashioned Western lawyers he had 
 met in his practice. He was very amusing, and his guest laughed 
 heartily for a time. 
 
 But suddenly Hall became aware that Otis was not listening. 
 Then he perceived that he was peering out of the window at 
 some one, and that on his face a look of bitter sadness was falling. 
 
 Hall stopped. "What do you see, Otis?" 
 
 Otis replied, "I see a forlorn, weary woman." 
 
 Mrs. Hall rose and went to the window. Mrs. Markham was 
 walking by the house, her baby in her arms. Savage anger and 
 weeping were in her eyes and on her lips, and there was hopeless 
 tragedy in her shambling walk and weak back. 
 
 In the silence Otis went on: "I saw the poor, dejected creature 
 twice this morning. I couldn't forget her." 
 
 "Who is she?" asked Mrs. Hall, very softly. 
 
 "Her name is Markham ; she's Sam Markham's wife," said Hall. 
 
 The young wife led the way into the sitting room, and the men 
 took seats and lit their cigars. Hall was meditating a diversion 
 when Otis resumed suddenly: 
 
 "That woman came to town to-day to get a change, to have a 
 little play-spell, and she's wandering around like a starved and 
 weary cat. I wonder if there is a woman in this town with 
 sympathy enough and courage enough to go out and help that 
 woman? The saloon-keepers, the politicians, and the grocers make 
 it pleasant for the man — so pleasant that he forgets his wife. But 
 the wife is left without a word." 
 
 Mrs. Hall's work dropped, and on her pretty face was a look 
 of pain. The man's harsh words had wounded her — and wakened 
 her. She took up her hat and hurried out on the walk. The men 
 looked at each other, and then the husband said: 
 
 "It's going to be a little sultry for the men around these dig- 
 gings. Suppose we go out for a walk." 
 
 Delia felt a hand on her arm as she stood at the corner. 
 
^1- 
 
 A Day's Pleasure 169 
 
 "You look tired, Mrs. Markham; won't you come in a little 
 while? I'm Mrs. Hall." 
 
 Mrs. Markham turned with a scowl on her face and a biting 
 word on her tongue, but something in the sweet, round little face 
 of the other woman silenced her, and her brow smoothed out. 
 
 "Thank you kindly, but it's most time to go home. I'm looking 
 fer Mr. Markham now." 
 
 "Oh, come in a little while, the baby is cross and tired out; 
 please do." 
 
 Mrs. Markham yielded to the friendly voice, and together the 
 two women reached the gate just as two men hurriedly turned 
 the other corner. 
 
 "Let me relieve you," said Mrs. Hall. 
 
 The mother hesitated: "He's so dusty." 
 
 "Oh, that won't matter. Oh, what a big fellow he is ! I haven't 
 any of my own," said Mrs. Hall, and a look passed like an electric 
 spark between the two women, and Delia was her willing guest 
 from that moment. 
 
 They went into the little sitting room, so dainty and lovely to 
 the farmer's wife, and as she sank into an easy-chair she was faint 
 and drowsy with the pleasure of it. She submitted to being brushed. 
 She gave the baby into the hands of the Swedish girl, who washed 
 its face and hands and sang it to sleep, while its mother sipped 
 some tea. Through it all she lay back in her easy-chair, not speak- 
 ing a word, while the ache passed out of her back, and her hot, 
 swollen head ceased to throb. 
 
 But she saw everything — the piano, the pictures, the curtains, 
 the wall-paper, the little tea-stand. They were almost as grate- 
 ful to her as the food and fragrant tea. Such housekeeping as 
 this she had never seen. Her mother had worn her kitchen floor 
 thin as brown paper in keeping a speckless house, and she had 
 been in houses that were larger and costlier, but something of 
 the charm of her hostess was in the arrangement of vases, chairs, 
 or pictures. It was tasteful. 
 
 Mrs. Hall did not ask about her affairs. She talked to her about 
 die sturdy little baby, and about the things upon which Delia's 
 
lyo Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 eyes dwelt. If she seemed interested in a vase she was told what 
 it was and where it was made. She was shown all the pictures and 
 books. Mrs. Hall seemed to read her visitor's mind. She kept as far 
 from the farm and her guest's affairs as possible, and at last she 
 opened the piano and sang to her — not slow-moving hymns, but 
 catchy love-songs full of sentiment, and then played some simple 
 melodies, knowing that Mrs. Markham's eyes were studying her 
 hands, her rings, and the flash of her fingers on the keys — seeing 
 more than she heard — and through it all Mrs. Hall conveyed the 
 impression that she, too, was having a good time. 
 
 The rattle of the wagon outside roused them both. Sam was 
 at the gate for her. Mrs. Markham rose hastily. "Oh, it's almost 
 sundown!" she gasped in astonishment as she looked out of the 
 window. 
 
 "Oh, that won't kill anybody," replied her hostess. "Don't 
 hurry. Carrie, take the baby out to the wagon for Mrs. Mark- 
 ham while I help her with her things." 
 
 "Oh, I've had such a good time," Mrs. Markham said as they 
 went down the little walk. 
 
 "So have I," replied Mrs. Hall. She took the baby a moment as 
 her guest climbed in. "Oh, you big, fat fellow!" she cried as she 
 gave him a squeeze. "You must bring your wife in oftener, Mr. 
 Markham," she said, as she handed the baby up. 
 
 Sam was staring with amazement. 
 
 "Thank you, I will," he finally managed to say. 
 
 "Good-night," said Mrs. Markham. 
 
 "Good-night, dear," called Mrs. Hall, and the wagon began to 
 rattle off. 
 
 The tenderness and sympathy in her voice brought the tears 
 to Delia's eyes — not hot or bitter tears, but tears that cooled her 
 eyes and cleared her mind. 
 
 The wind had gone down, and the red sunlight fell mistily 
 over the world of corn and stubble. The crickets were still chirp- 
 ing and the feeding cattle were drifting toward the farmyards, 
 The day hadjieen made beautiful by human sympathx,_ 
 
MRS. RIPLEY'S TRIP 
 
 The night was in windy November, and the blast, threaten- 
 ing rain, roared around the poor little shanty of Uncle Ripley, 
 set like a chicken-trap on the vast Iowa prairie. Uncle Ethan was 
 mending his old violin, with many York State "dums!" and "I 
 gol darns!" totally oblivious of his tireless old wife, who, having 
 "finished the supper-dishes," sat knitting a stocking, evidently for 
 the little grandson who lay before the stove like a cat. 
 
 Neither of the old people wore glasses, and their light was a 
 tallow candle; they couldn't afford "none o' them new-fangled 
 lamps." The room was small, the chairs were wooden, and the 
 walls bare — a home where poverty was a never-absent guest. The 
 old lady looked pathetically little, weazened, and hopeless in her 
 ill-fitting garments (whose original color had long since vanished), 
 intent as she was on the stocking in her knotted, stiffened fingers, 
 and there was a peculiar sparkle in her little black eyes, and an 
 unusual resolution in the straight line of her withered and shape- 
 less lips. 
 
 Suddenly she paused, stuck a needle in the spare knob of her 
 hair at the back of her head, and looking at Ripley, said de- 
 cisively: "Ethan Ripley, you'll haff to do your own cooking from 
 now on to New Year's. I'm goin' back to Yaark State." 
 
 The old man's leather-brown face stiffened into a look of 
 quizzical surprise for a moment; then he cackled, incredulously: 
 "Ho! Ho! har! Sho! be y', now? I want to know if y' be." 
 
 "Well, you'll find out." 
 
 "Goin' to start to-morrow, mother?" 
 
 "No, sir, I ain't; but I am on Thursday. I want to get to 
 Sally's by Sunday, sure, an' to Silas's on Thanksgivin'." 
 
 There was a note in the old woman's voice that brought genuine 
 stupefaction into the face of Uncle Ripley. Of course in this 
 case, as in all others, the money consideration was uppermost. 
 
 171 
 
172 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Howgy 'xpect to get the money, mother? Anybody died an' 
 left yeh a pile?" 
 
 "Never you mind where I get the money, so 's 't you don't haff 
 to bear it. The land knows if I'd 'a' waited for you to pay my 
 way " 
 
 "You needn't twit me of bein' poor, old woman," said Ripley, 
 flaming up after the manner of many old people. "I've done my 
 part t' get along. I've worked day in and day out " 
 
 "Oh! / ain't done no work, have I?" snapped she, laying down 
 the stocking and levelling a needle at him, and putting a fright- 
 ful emphasis on "I." 
 
 "I didn't say you hadn't done no work." 
 
 "Yes, you did!" 
 
 "I didn't neither. I said " 
 
 "I know what you said." 
 
 "I said I'd done my parti" roared the husband, dominating her 
 as usual by superior lung power. "I didn't say you hadn't done 
 your part," he added with an unfortunate touch of emphasis. 
 
 "I know y' didn't say it, but y' meant it. I don't know what y' 
 call doin' my part, Ethan Ripley; but if cookin' for a drove of 
 harvest hands and thrashin' hands, takin' care o' the eggs and but- 
 ter, 'n' diggin' 'taters an' milkin' ain't my part, I don't never 
 expect to do my part, 'n'.you might as well know it fust 's last. 
 
 "I'm sTxty^ yeafT old,"\ she went on, with a little break in her 
 harsh voice, dominating him now by woman's logic, "an' I've 
 never had a day to myself, not even Fourth o' July. If I've v/ent- 
 a-visitin' 'r to a picnic, I've had to come home an' milk 'n' get 
 supper for you men-folks. I ain't been away 't stay overnight for 
 thirteen years in this house, 'n' it was just so in Davis County for 
 ten more. For twenty-three years, Ethan Ripley, I've stuck right 
 to the stove an' churn without a day or a night off." 
 
 Her voice choked again, but she rallied, and continued impres- 
 sively, "And now I'm a-goin' back to Yaark State." 
 
 Ethan was vanquished. He stared at her in speechless surprise, 
 his jaw hanging. It was incredible. 
 
 "For twenty-three years," she went on, musingly, "I've just 
 
Mrs. Ripley's Trip 173 
 
 about promised myself every year I'd go back an' see my folks." 
 She was distinctly talking to herself now, and her voice had a 
 touching, wistful cadence. "I've wanted to go back an' see the old 
 folks, an' the hills wh^e we played, an' eat apples off the old tree 
 down by the well. I've had them trees an' hills in my mind days 
 and days — nights, too — an' the girls I used to know, an' my own 
 folks " 
 
 She fell Into a silent muse, which lasted so long that the ticking 
 of the clock grew loud as a gong in the man's ears, and the wind 
 outside seemed to sound drearier than usual. He returned to the 
 money problem; kindly, though. 
 
 "But how y' goin' t' raise the money? I ain't got no extra cash 
 this time. Agin Roach is paid, an' the interest paid, we ain't got 
 no hundred dollars to spare, Jane, not by a jugful." 
 
 "Wal, don't you lay awake nights studyin' on where I'm a-goin' 
 to get the money," said the old woman, taking delight in mystify- 
 ing him. She had him now, and he couldn't escape. He strove to 
 show his indifference, however, by playing a tune or two on the 
 violin. 
 
 "Come, Tukey, you better climb the wooden hill," Mrs. Ripley 
 said, a half-hour later, to the little chap on the floor, who was 
 beginning to get drowsy under the influence of his grandpa's 
 fiddling. "Pa, you had orta 'a' put that string in the clock 
 to-day — on the 'larm side the string is broke," she said, upon re- 
 turning from the boy's bedroom. "I orta git up early to-morrow, 
 to git some sewin' done. Land knows, I can't fix up much, but 
 they is a little I c'n do. I want to look decent." 
 
 They were alone now, and they both sat expectantly. 
 
 "You 'pear to think, mother, that I'm agin yer goin'." 
 
 "Wal, it would kinder seem as if y' hadn't hustled yerself any 
 t' help me git off." 
 
 He was smarting under the sense of being wronged. "Wal, I'm 
 just as willin' you should go as I am for myself, but if I ain't 
 got no money I don't see how I'm goin' to send " 
 
 "I don't want ye to send; nobody ast ye to, Ethan Ripley. I 
 
174 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 guess if I had what I've earnt since we came on this farm I'd have 
 enough to go to Jericho with." 
 
 "You've got as much out of it as I have," he replied gently. 
 "You talk about your goin' back. Ain't I been wantin' to go 
 back myself? And ain't I kep' still 'cause I see it wa'n't no use? 
 I guess I've worked jest as long and as hard as you, an' in storms 
 an' in mud an' heat, ef it comes t' that." 
 
 The woman was staggered, but she wouldn't give up ; she must 
 get in one more thrust. 
 
 "Wal, if you'd 'a' managed as well as I have, you'd have some 
 money to go with." And she rose and went to mix her bread and 
 set it "raisin'." 
 
 He sat by the fire twanging his fiddle softly. He was plainly 
 thrown into gloomy retrospection, something quite unusual for 
 him. But his fingers picking out the bars of a familiar tune set 
 him to smiling, and whipping his bow across the strings, he for- 
 got all about his wife's resolutions and his own hardships. "Trouble 
 always slid o£E his back like punkins off a haystack, anyway," his 
 wife said. 
 
 The old man still sat fiddling softly after his wife disappeared 
 in the hot and stufify little bedroom off the kitchen. His shaggy 
 head bent lower over his violin. He heard her shoes drop — one, 
 two. Pretty soon she called: 
 
 "Come, put up that squeakin' old fiddle, and go to bed. Seems 
 as if you orta have sense enough not to set there keepin' everybody 
 in the house awake." 
 
 "You hush up," retorted he. "I'll come when I git ready, and 
 not till. I'll be glad when you're gone " 
 
 "Yes, I warrant that." 
 
 With which amiable good-night they went ofl to sleep, or at 
 least she did, while he lay awake pondering on "where under the 
 sun was she goin' t' raise that money." 
 
 The next day she was up bright and early, working away on her 
 own affairs ignoring Ripley entirely, the fixed look of resolution 
 still on her little old wrinkled face. She killed a hen and dressed 
 and baked it. She fried up a pan of doughnuts and made a cake. 
 
Mrs. Ripley's Trip 175 
 
 She was engaged in the doughnuts when a neighbor came in, 
 one of these women who take it as a personal affront when any 
 one in the neighborhood does anything without asking their advice. 
 She was fat, and could talk a man blind in three minutes by the 
 watch. Her neighbor said: 
 
 "What's this I hear, Mis' Ripley?" 
 
 "I dun know. I expect you hear about all they is goin' on in 
 this neighborhood," replied Mrs. Ripley, with crushing bluntness; 
 but the gossip did not flinch. 
 
 "Well, Sett Turner told me that her husband told her that 
 Ripley told him this mornin' that you was goin' back East on a 
 visit." 
 
 "Wal, what of it?" 
 
 "Well, air yeh?" 
 
 "The Lord willin' an' the weather permittin', I expect I be." 
 
 "Good land, I want to know! Well, well! I never was so as- 
 tonished in my whole life. I said, says I, 'It can't be.' 'Well,' ses 'e, 
 'that's what she told me,' ses 'e. 'But,' ses I, 'she is the last woman 
 in the world to go gallavantin' off East,' ses I. 'An',' ses he, 'but 
 it comes from good authority,' ses he. 'Well, then, it must be so,' 
 ses I. But, land sakes! do tell me all about it. How come you to 
 make up y'r mind? All these years you've been kind a' talkin' 
 it over, an' now y'r actshelly goin' — ^well, I never I 'I s'pose Ripley 
 furnishes the money,' ses I to him. 'Well, no' ses 'e. 'Ripley says 
 he'll be blowed if he sees where the money's coming from,' ses 'e ; 
 and ses I, "But maybe she's jest jokin',' ses I. 'Not much,' he 
 says. S' 'e: 'Ripley believes she's goin' fast enough. He's jest as 
 anxious to find out as we be 
 
 Here Mrs. Doudney paused for breath ; she had walked so fast 
 and rested so little that her interminable flow of "ses I's" and 
 "ses he's" ceased necessarily. She had reached, moreover, the point 
 of most vital interest — ^the money. 
 
 "An' you'll find out jest 'bout as soon as he does," was the 
 dry response from the figure hovering over the stove; and with 
 all her manoeuvring that was all she got. 
 
 All day Ripley went about his work exceedingly thoughtful for 
 
176 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 him. It was cold blustering weather. The wind rustled among 
 the corn-stalks with a wild and mournful sound, the geese and 
 ducks went sprawling down the wind, and the horses' coats were 
 ruffled and backs raised. 
 
 The old man was husking all alone in the field, his spare form 
 rigged out in two or three ragged coats, his hands inserted in a 
 pair of gloves minus nearly all the fingers, his thumbs done up in 
 "stalls," and his feet thrust into huge coarse boots. The "down 
 ears" wet and chapped his hands, already worn to the quick. 
 Toward night it grew colder and threatened snow. In spite of all 
 these attacks he kept his cheerfulness, and though he was very 
 tired, he was softened in temper. 
 
 Having plenty of time to think matters over, he had come to 
 the conclusion that the old woman needed a play-spell. "I ain't 
 likely to be no richer next year than I am this one; if I wait 
 till I'm able to send her she won't never go. I calc'late I c'n 
 git enough out o' them shoats to send her. I'd kind a' lotted on 
 eat'n them pigs done up in sassengers, but if the ol' woman goes 
 East, Tukey an' me'll kind a' hafi to pull through without 'em. 
 We'll have a turkey f'r Thanksgivin', an' a chicken once 'n a 
 while. Lord! but we'll miss the gravy on the flapjacks." (He 
 smacked his lips over the thought of the lost dainty.) "But let 'er 
 rip! We can stand it. Then there is my buffalo overcoat. I'd kind 
 a' calc'Iated on havin' a buifalo — but that's gone up the spout 
 along with them sassengers." 
 
 These heroic sacrifices having been determined upon, he put 
 them into effect at once. 
 
 This he was able to do, for his corn-rows ran alongside the 
 road leading to Cedarville, and his neighbors were passing almost 
 all hours of the day. 
 
 It would have softened Jane Ripley's heart could she have seen 
 his bent and stiffened form among the corn-rows, the cold wind 
 piercing to the bone through his threadbare and insufficient cloth- 
 ing. The rising wind sent the snow rattling among the moaning 
 stalks at intervals. The cold made his poor dim eyes water, and 
 he had to stop now and then to swing his arms about his chest 
 
Mrs. Ripley's Trip 177 
 
 to warm them. His voice was hoarse with shouting at the shiver- 
 ing team. 
 
 That night as Mrs. Ripley was clearing the dishes away she 
 got to thinking about the departure of the next day, and she began 
 to soften. She gave way to a few tears when little Tewksbury 
 Gilchrist, her grandson, came up and stood beside her. 
 
 "Gran'ma, you ain't goin' to stay away always, are yeh?" 
 
 "Why, course not, Tukey. What made y' think that ?" 
 
 "Well, y' ain't told us nawthin' 't all about it. An' yeh kind o' 
 look 's if yeh was mad." 
 
 "Well, I ain't mad ; I'm jest a-thinkin', Tukey. Y' see, I come 
 away from them hills when I was a little girl a'most; before I 
 married y'r grandad. And I ain't never been back. 'Most all my 
 folks is there, sonny, an' we've been s' poor all these years I 
 couldn't seem t' never git started. Now, when I'm 'most ready 
 t' go, I feel kind a queer — 's if I'd cry." 
 
 And cry she did, while little Tewksbury stood patting her 
 trembling hands. Hearing Ripley's step on the porch, she rose 
 hastily and, drying her eyes, plunged at the work again. 
 
 Ripley came in with a big armful of wood, which he rolled 
 into the wood-box with a thundering crash. Then he pulled off 
 his mittens, slapped them together to knock off the ice and snow, 
 and laid them side by side under the stove. He then removed cap, 
 coat, blouse, and finally his boots, which he laid upon the wood- 
 box, the soles turned toward the stove-pipe. 
 
 As he sat down without speaking, he opened the front doors of 
 the stove, and held the palms of his stiffened hands to the blaze. 
 The light brought out a thoughtful look on his large, uncouth, yet 
 kindly, visage. Life had laid hard lines on his brown skin, but it 
 had not entirely soured a naturally kind and simple nature. It had 
 made him penurious and dull and iron-muscled; had stifled all 
 the slender flowers of his nature; yet there was warm soil some- 
 where hid in his heart. 
 
 "It's snowin' like all p'ssessed," he remarked finally. "I guess 
 we'll have a sleigh-ride to-morrow. I calc'late t' drive y' daown 
 
178 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 in scrumptious style. If you must leave, why, we'll give yeh a 
 whoopin' old send-off — ^won't we, Tukey?" 
 
 Nobody replying, he waited a moment. "I've ben a-thinkin' things 
 over kind o' t'-day, mother, an' I've come t' the conclusion that 
 we have been kind o' hard on yeh, without knowin' it, y' see. Y' 
 see I'm kind o' easy-goin', an' little Tuke he's only a child, an' 
 we ain't c'nsidered how you felt." 
 
 She didn't appear to be listening, but she was, and he didn't 
 appear, on his part, to be talking to her, and he kept his voice 
 as hard and dry as he could. 
 
 "An' I was tellin' Tukey t'-day that it was a dum shame our 
 crops hadn't turned out better. An' when I saw ol' Hatfield go 
 by I hailed him, an' asked him what he'd gimme for two o' m' 
 shoats. Wal, the upshot is, I sent t' town for some things I calc'- 
 late you'd need. An' here's a ticket to Georgetown, and ten dol- 
 lars. Why, ma, what's up?" 
 
 Mrs. Ripley broke down, and with her hands all wet with dish- 
 water, as they were, covered her face, and sobbed. She felt like 
 kissing him, but she didn't. Tewksbury began to whimper too; 
 but the old man was astonished. His wife had not wept for years 
 (before him). He rose and walking clumsily up to her timidly 
 touched her hair 
 
 "Why, mother! What's the matter? What 've I done now? I 
 was calc'latin' to sell them pigs anyway. Hatfield jest advanced 
 the money on 'em." 
 
 She hopped up and dashed into the bedroom, and in a few 
 minutes returned with a yarn mitten, tied around the wrist, which 
 she laid on the table with a thump, saying: "I don't want yer 
 money. There's money enough to take me where I want to go." 
 
 "Whee — ew! Thunder and gimpsum root! Where 'd ye get 
 that? Didn't dig it out of a hole?" 
 
 "No, I jest saved it — a dime at a time — see!" 
 
 Here she turned it out on the table — some bills, but mostly 
 silver dimes and quarters. 
 
 "Thunder and scissors! Must be two er three hundred dollars 
 there," he exclaimed. 
 
Mrs. Ripley's Trip 179 
 
 "They's jest seventy-five dollars and thirty cents; jest about 
 enough to go back on. Tickets is fifty-five dollars, goin' and 
 comin'. That leaves twenty dollars for other expenses, not countin' 
 what I've already spent, which is six-fifty," said she, recovering 
 her self-possession. "It's plenty." 
 
 "But y' ain't calc'lated on no sleepers nor hotel bills." 
 
 "I ain't goin' on no sleeper. Mis' Doudney says it's jest scan- 
 dalous the way things is managed on them cars. I'm goin' on the 
 old-fashioned cars, where they ain't no half-dressed men runnin' 
 around." 
 
 "But you needn't be afraid of them, mother; at your age " 
 
 "There ! you needn't throw my age an' homeliness into my face, 
 Ethan Ripley. If I hadn't waited an' tended on you so long, I'd 
 look a little more 's I did when I married yeh." 
 
 Ripley gave it up in despair. He didn't realize fully enough 
 how the proposed trip had unsettled his wife's nerves. She didn't 
 realize it herself. 
 
 "As for the hotel bills, they won't be none. I ain't agoin' to 
 pay them pirates as much for a day's board as we'd charge for a 
 week's, and have nawthin' to eat but dishes. I'm goin' to take a 
 chicken an' some hard-boiled eggs, an' I'm goin' right through 
 to Georgetown." 
 
 "Wal, all right, mother ; but here's the ticket I got." 
 
 "I don't want yer ticket." 
 
 "But you've got to take it." 
 
 "Well, I hain't." 
 
 "Why, yes, ye have. It's bought, an' they won't take it back." 
 
 "Won't they?" She was perplexed again. 
 
 "Not much they won't. I ast 'em. A ticket sold is sold." 
 
 "Wal, if they won't " 
 
 "You bet they won't." 
 
 "I s'pose I'll hafi to use it." And that ended it. 
 
 They were a familiar sight as they rode down the road toward 
 town next day. As usual, Mrs. Ripley sat up straight and stiff as 
 "a half-drove wedge in a white-oak log." The day was cold and 
 raw. There was some snow on the ground, but not enough to war- 
 
i8o Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 rant the use of sleighs. It was "neither sleddin' nor wheelin'." 
 The old people sat on a board laid across the box, and had an 
 old quilt or two drawn up over their knees. Tewksbury lay in 
 the back part of the box (which was filled with hay), where he 
 jounced up and down, in company with a queer old trunk and a 
 brand-new imitation-leather hand-bag. 
 
 There is no ride quite so desolate and uncomfortable as a ride 
 in a lumber-wagon on a cold day in autumn, when the ground 
 is frozen, and the wind is strong and raw with threatening snow. 
 The wagon-wheels grind along in the snow, the cold gets in under 
 the seat at the calves of one's legs, and the ceaseless bumping of 
 the bottom of the box on the feet is almost intolerable. 
 
 There was not much talk on the way down, and what little 
 there was related mainly to certain domestic regulations, to be 
 strictly followed, regarding churning, pickles, pancakes, etc. Mrs. 
 Ripley wore a shawl over her head, and carried her queer little black 
 bonnet in her hand. Tewksbury was also wrapped in a shawl. The 
 boy's teeth were pounding together like castanets by the time they 
 reached Cedarville, and every muscle ached with the fatigue of 
 shaking. 
 
 After a few purchases they drove down to the station, a fright- 
 ful little den (common in the West), which was always too hot 
 or too cold. It happened to be hot just now — a fact which rejoiced 
 little Tewksbury. 
 
 "Now git my trunk stamped, 'r fixed, 'r whatever they call it," 
 she said to Ripley, in a commanding tone, which gave great delight 
 to the inevitable crowd of loafers beginning to assemble. "Now 
 remember, Tukey, have grandad kill that biggest turkey night 
 before Thanksgiving, an' then you run right over to Mis' Doud- 
 ney's — she's got a nawful tongue, but she can bake a turkey first- 
 rate — an' she'll fix up some squash-pies for yeh. You can warm 
 up one o' them mince-pies. I wish ye could be with me, but ye 
 can't ; so do the best ye can." 
 
 Ripley returning now, she said: "Wal, now, I've fixed things 
 up the best I could. I've baked bread enough to last a week, an' 
 Mis' Doudney has promised to bake for yeh " 
 
Mrs. Ripley's Trip i8i 
 
 "I don't like her bakin'." 
 
 "Wal, you'll haff to stand it till I get back, 'n' you'll find a 
 jar o' sweet pickles an' some crab-apple sauce down suller, 'n' 
 you'd better melt up brown sugar for 'lasses, 'n' for goodness' 
 sake don't eat all them mince-pies up the fust week, 'n' see that 
 Tukey ain't froze goin' to school. An' now you'd better get out 
 for home. Good-by! an' remember them pies." 
 
 As they were riding home, Ripley roused up after a long silence. 
 
 "Did she — a — kiss you good-by, Tukey?" 
 
 "No, sir," piped Tewksbury. 
 
 "Thunder! didn't she?" After a silence: "She didn't me, 
 neither. I guess she kind a' sort a' forgot it, bein' so flustered, 
 y' know." 
 
 One cold, windy, intensely bright day, Mrs. Stacey, who lives 
 about two miles from Cedarville, looking out of the window, saw 
 a queer little figure struggling along the road, which was blocked 
 here and there with drifts. It was an old woman laden with a 
 good half-dozen parcels, which the wind seemed determined to 
 wrench from her. 
 
 She was dressed in black, with a full skirt, and her cloak being 
 short, the wind had excellent opportunity to inflate her garments 
 and sail her off occasionally into the deep snow outside the track, 
 but she held out bravely till she reached the gate. As she turned 
 in, Mrs. Stacey cried : 
 
 "Why! it's Gran'ma Ripley, just getting back from her trip. 
 Why! how do you do? Come in. Why! you must be nearly 
 frozen. Let me take off your hat and veil." 
 
 "No, thank ye kindly, but I can't stop," was the given reply. 
 "I must be gittin' back to Ripley. I expec' that man has jest let 
 ev'rything go six ways f'r Sunday." 
 
 "Oh, you must sit down just a minute and warm." 
 
 "Wal, I will; but I've got to git home by sundown sure. I 
 don't s'pose they's a thing in the house to eat," she said solemnly. 
 
 "Oh, dear ! I wish Stacey was here, so he could take you home. 
 An' the boys at school " 
 
1 82 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Don't need any help, if 't wa'nt for these bundles an' things. 
 I guess I'll jest leave some of 'em here, an' — Here! take one of 
 these apples. I brought 'em from Lizy Jane's suller, back to Yaark 
 State." 
 
 "Oh, they're delicious! You must have had a lovely time." 
 
 "Pretty good. But I kep' thinkin' of Ripley an' Tukey all the 
 time. I s'pose they have had a gay time of it" (she meant the 
 opposite of gay). "Wal, as I told Lizy Jane, I've had my spree, 
 an' now I've got to git back to vrork. They ain't no rest for such 
 as we are. As I told Lizy Jane, them folks in the big houses 
 have Thanksgivin' dinners every day of their lives, and men an' 
 women in splendid clo's to wait on 'em, so't Thanksgivin' don't 
 mean anything to 'em ; but we poor critters, we make a great to-do 
 if we have a good dinner onct a year. I've saw a pile o' this 
 world, Mrs. Stacey — a pile of it ! I didn't think they was so many 
 big houses in the world as I saw b'tween here an' Chicago. Wal, 
 I can't set here gabbin'." She rose resolutely. "I must get home 
 to Ripley. Jest kind o' stow them bags away. I'll take two an' 
 leave them three others. Good-by! I must be gittin' home to 
 Ripley. He'll want his supper on time." 
 
 And off up the road the indomitable little figure trudged, head 
 held down to the cutting blast — little snow-fly, a speck on a 
 measureless expanse, crawling along with painful breathing, and 
 slipping, sliding steps — "Gittin' home to Ripley an' the boy." 
 
 Ripley was out to the barn when she entered, but Tewskbury 
 was building a fire in the old cook-stove. He sprang up with a 
 cry of joy, and ran to her. She seized him and kissed him, and 
 it did her so much good she hugged him close, and kissed him 
 again and again, crying hysterically. 
 
 "Oh, gran'ma, I'm so glad to see you! We've had an awful 
 time since you've been gone." 
 
 She released him, and looked around. A lot of dirty dishes 
 were on the table, the table-cloth was a "sight to behold" (as 
 she afterward said), and so was the stove — kettle-marks all over 
 the table-cloth, splotches of pancake batter all over the stove. 
 
Mrs. Ripley's Trip 183 
 
 "Wal, I sh'd say as much," she dryly assented, untying her 
 bonnet-strings. 
 
 When Ripley came in she had her regimentals on, the stove was 
 brushed, the room swept, and she was elbow-deep in the dish-pan. 
 "Hullo, mother! Got back, hev yeh?" 
 
 "I sh'd say it was about time," she replied curtly, without 
 looking up or ceasing work. "Has ol' 'Grumpy' dried up yit?" 
 This was her greeting. 
 
 Tier trip was IT fact now ; no chance could rob her of it. She had 
 looked forward twenty-three years toward it, and now she could 
 look back at it accomplished. She took up her burden again, 
 never more thinking to lay it down. 
 
UNCLE ETHAN RIPLEY 
 
 Uncle Ethan had a theory that a man's character could be 
 told by the way he sat in a wagon seat. 
 
 "A mean man sets right plumb in the middle o' the seat, as 
 much as to say, 'Walk, gol darn yeh, who cares!' But a man that 
 sets in the corner o' the seat, much as to say, 'Jump in — cheaper 
 t' ride 'n to walk,' you can jest tie to." 
 
 Uncle Ripley was prejudiced in favor of the stranger, therefore, 
 before he came opposite the potato patch, where the old man was 
 "bugging his vines." The stranger drove a jaded-looking pair of 
 calico ponies, hitched to a clattering democrat wagon, and he sat 
 on the extreme end of the seat, with the lines in his right hand, 
 while his left rested on his thigh, with his little finger gracefully 
 crooked and his elbows akimbo. He wore a blue shirt, with gay- 
 colored armlets just above the elbows, and his vest hung unbut- 
 toned down his lank ribs. It was plain he was well pleased with 
 himself. 
 
 As he pulled up and threw one leg over the end of the seat, 
 Uncle Ethan observed that the left spring was much more worn 
 than the other, which proved that it was not accidental, but that 
 it was the driver's habit to sit on that end of the seat. 
 
 "Good afternoon," said the stranger, pleasantly. 
 
 "Good afternoon, sir." 
 
 "Bugs purty plenty?" 
 
 "Plenty enough, I gol! I don't see where they all come fum." 
 
 "Early Rose ?" inquired the man, as if referring to the bugs. 
 
 "No; Peachblows an' Carter Reds. My Early Rose is over 
 near the house. The old woman wants 'em near. See the darned 
 things!" he pursued, rapping savagely on the edge of the pan to 
 rattle the bugs back. 
 
 "How do yeh kill 'em — scald 'em?" 
 
 184 
 
Uncle Ethan Ripley 185 
 
 "Mostly. Sometimes I " 
 
 "Good piece of oats," yawned the stranger, listlessly. 
 
 "That's barley." 
 
 "So 'tis. Didn't notice." 
 
 Uncle Ethan was wondering who the man was. He had some 
 pots of black paint in the wagon, and two or three square boxes. 
 
 "What do yeh think o' Cleveland's chances for a second term?" 
 continued the man, as if they had been talking politics all the 
 while. 
 
 Uncle Ripley scratched his head. "Waal — I dunno — ^bein' a 
 Republican — I think " 
 
 "That's so — it's a purty scaly outlook. I don't believe in second 
 terms myself," the man hastened to say. 
 
 "Is that your new barn acrosst there?" he asked, pointing with 
 his whip. 
 
 "Yes, sir, it is," replied the old man, proudly. After years of 
 planning and hard work he had managed to erect a little wooden 
 barn, costing possibly three hundred dollars. It was plain to be 
 seen he took a childish pride in the fact of its newness. 
 
 The stranger mused. "A lovely place for a sign," he said, as 
 his eyes wandered across its shining yellow broadside. 
 
 Uncle Ethan stared, unmindful of the bugs crawling over the 
 edge of his pan. His interest in the pots of paint deepened. 
 
 "Couldn't think o' lettin' me paint a sign on that barn?" the 
 stranger continued, putting his locked hands around one knee, 
 and gazing away across the pig-pen at the building. 
 
 "What kind of a sign? Gol darn your skins!" Uncle Ethan 
 pounded the pan with his paddle and scraped two or three crawling 
 abominations ofi his leathery wrist. 
 
 It was a beautiful day, and the man in the wagon seemed un- 
 usually loath to attend to business. The tired ponies slept in the 
 shade of the lombardies. The plain was draped in a warm mist, 
 and shadowed by vast, vaguely defined masses of clouds — a lazy 
 June day. 
 
 "Dodd's Family Bitters," said the man, waking out of his 
 abstraction with a start, and resuming his working manner. "The 
 
1 86 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 best bitter in the market." He alluded to it in the singular. "Lik^ 
 to look at it? No trouble to show goods, as the fellah says," he 
 went on hastily, seeing Uncle Ethan's hesitation. 
 
 He produced a large bottle of triangular shape, like a bottle 
 for pickled onions. It had a red seal on top, and a strenuous cau- 
 tion in red letters on the neck, "None genuine unless 'Dodd's 
 Family Bitters' is blown in the bottom." 
 
 "Here's what it cures," pursued the agent, pointing at the side, 
 where, in an inverted pyramid, the names of several hundred 
 diseases were arranged, running from "gout" to "pulmonary com- 
 plaints," etc. 
 
 "I gol! she cuts a wide swath, don't she?" exclaimed Uncle 
 Ethan, profoundly impressed with the list. 
 
 "They ain't no better bitter in the world," said the agent, with 
 a conclusive inflection. 
 
 "What's its speshy-fl/ity? Most of 'em have some speshy-a/ity." 
 
 "Well — summer complaints — an' — an' — spring an' fall troubles 
 — tones ye up, sort of." 
 
 Uncle Ethan's forgotten pan was empty of his gathered bugs. 
 He was deeply interested in this man. There was something he 
 liked about him. 
 
 "What does it sell fur?" he asked, after a pause. 
 
 "Same price as them cheap medicines — dollar a bottle — ^big 
 bottles, too. Want one?" 
 
 "Wal, mother ain't to home, an' I don't know as she'd like 
 this kind. We ain't been sick f'r years. Still, they's no tellin'," 
 he added, seeing the answer to his objection in the agent's eyes. 
 "Times is purty close to, with us, y' see; we've jest built that 
 stable " 
 
 "Say I'll tell yeh what I'll do," said the stranger, waking up 
 and speaking in a warmly generous tone. "I'll give you ten 
 bottles of the bitter if you'll let me paint a sign on that barn. 
 It won't hurt the barn a bit, and if you want 'o you can paint 
 it out a year from date. Come, what d'ye say?" 
 
 "I guess I hadn't better." 
 
Uncle Ethan Ripley 187 
 
 The agent thought that Uncle Ethan was after more pay, but 
 in reality he was thinking of what his little old wife would say. 
 
 "It simply puts a family bitter in your home that may save 
 you fifty dollars this comin' fall. You can't tell." 
 
 Just what the man said after that Uncle Ethan didn't follow. 
 His voice had a confidential purring sound as he stretched across 
 the wagon-seat and talked on, eyes half shut. He straightened up 
 at last, and concluded in the tone of one who has carried his 
 point : 
 
 "So! If you didn't want to use the whole twenty-five bottles 
 y'rself, why! sell it to your neighbors. You can get twenty dollars 
 out of it easy, and still have five bottles of the best family bitter 
 that ever went into a bottle." 
 
 It was the thought of this opportunity to get a buffalo-skin coaft 
 that consoled Uncle Ethan as he saw the hideous black letters | 
 appearing under the agent's lazy brush. ,„> > ^ ' 
 
 It was the hot side of the barn, and painting was no light work. 
 The agent was forced to mop his forehead with his sleeve. 
 
 "Say, hain't got a cooky or anything, and a cup o' milk, handy?" 
 he said at the end of the first enormous word, which ran the 
 whole length of the barn. 
 
 Uncle Ethan got him the milk and cooky, which he ate with 
 an exaggeratedly dainty action of his fingers, seated meanwhile 
 on the staging which Uncle Ripley had helped him to build. 
 This lunch infused new energy into him, and in a short time 
 "Dodd's Family Bitters, Best in the Market," disfigured the 
 sweet-smelling pine boards. 
 
 Ethan was eating his self-obtained supper of bread and milk 
 when his wife came home. 
 
 "Who's been a-paintin' on that barn?" she demanded, her 
 bead-like eyes flashing, her withered little face set in an ominous 
 frown. "Ethan Ripley, what you been doin'?" 
 
 "Nawthin'," he replied feebly. 
 
 "Who painted that sign on there?" 
 
 "A man come along an' he wanted to paint that on there, and 
 
1 88 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 I let 'im; and it's my barn anyway. I guess I can do what I'm 
 a min' to with it," he ended, defiantly; but his eyes wavered. 
 
 Mrs. Ripley ignored the defiance. "What under the sun p'sessed 
 you to do such a thing as that, Ethan Ripley? I declare I don't 
 see ! You git fooler an' fooler ev'ry day you live, I do believe." 
 
 Uncle Ethan attempted a defence. 
 
 "Wal, he paid me twenty-five dollars f'r it, anyway." 
 
 "Did 'e?" She was visibly afEected by this news. 
 
 "Wall, anyhow, it amounts to that; he give me twenty-five 
 bottles " 
 
 Mrs. Ripley sank back in her chair. "Wal, I swan to Bungay! 
 Ethan Ripley — wal, you beat all I ever see !" she added, in despair 
 of expression. "I thought you had some sense left; but you hain't, 
 not one blessed scimpton. Where is the stuff ?" 
 
 "Down cellar, an' you needn't take on no airs, ol' woman. 
 I've known you to buy things you didn't need time an' time an' 
 agin — tins an' things, an' I guess you wish you had back that ten 
 dollars you paid for that illustrated Bible." 
 
 "Go 'long an' bring that stuff up here. I never see such a man 
 in my life. It's a wonder he didn't do it f'r two bottles. She 
 glared out at the sign, which faced directly upon the kitchen 
 window. 
 
 Uncle Ethan tugged the two cases up and set them down on the 
 floor of the kitchen. Mrs. Ripley opened a bottle and smelled of it 
 like a cautious cat. 
 
 "Ugh! Merciful sakes, what stuff! It ain't fit f'r a hog to take. 
 What'd you think you was goin' to do with it?" she asked in 
 poignant disgust. 
 
 "I expected to take it — if I was sick. Whaddy ye s'pose?" He 
 defiantly stood his ground, towering above her like a leaning tower. 
 
 "The hull cartload of it?" 
 
 "No. I'm goin' to sell part of it an' git me an overcoat " 
 
 "Sell it!" she shouted. "Nobuddy'll buy that sick'nin' stuff but 
 an old numskull like you. Take that slop out o' the house this 
 minute! Take it right down to the sink-hole an' smash every 
 bottle on the stones." 
 
Uncle Ethan Ripley 189 
 
 Uncle Ethan and the cases of medicine disappeared, and the 
 old woman addressed her concluding remarks to little Tewks- 
 bury, her grandson, who stood timidly on one leg in the door- 
 way, like an intruding pullet. 
 
 "Everything around this place 'ud go to rack an' ruin if I 
 didn't keep a watch on that soft-pated old dummy. I thought 
 that lightnin'-rod man had give him a lesson he'd remember; but 
 no, he must go an' make a reg'lar " 
 
 She subsided in a tumult of banging pans, which helped her out 
 in the matter of expression and reduced her to a grim sort of 
 quiet. Uncle Ethan went about the house like a convict on ship- 
 board. Once she caught him looking out of the window. 
 
 "I should think you'd feel proud o' that." 
 
 Uncle Ethan had never been sick a day in his life. He was bent 
 and bruised with never-ending toil, but he had nothing especial 
 the matter with him. 
 
 He did not smash the medicine, as Mrs. Ripley commanded, 
 because he had determined to sell it. The next Sunday morning, 
 after his chores were done, he put on his best coat of faded 
 diagonal, and was brushing his hair into a ridge across the centre 
 of his high, narrow head, when Mrs. Ripley came in from feeding 
 the calves. 
 
 "Where you goin' now?" 
 
 "None o' your business," he replied. "It's darn funny if I can't 
 stir without you wantin' to know all about it. Where's Tukey?" 
 
 "Feedin' the chickens. You ain't goin' to take him ofE this 
 mornin' now! I don't care where you go." 
 
 "Who's a-goin' to take him off. I ain't said nothin' about 
 takin' him off." 
 
 "Wal, take y'rself off, an' if y' ain't here f'r dinner, I ain't 
 goin' to get no supper." 
 
 Ripley took a water-pail and put four bottles of "the bitter" 
 into it, and trudged away up the road with it in a pleasant glow 
 of hope. All nature seemed to declare the day a time of rest, 
 and invited men to disassociate ideas of toil from the rustling 
 green wheat, shining grass, and tossing blooms. Something of the 
 
190 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 sweetness and buoyancy of all nature permeated the old man's 
 work-calloused body, and he whistled little snatches of the dance 
 tunes he played on his fiddle. 
 
 But he found neighbor Johnson to be supplied with another 
 variety of bitter, which was all he needed for the present. He 
 qualified his refusal to buy with a cordial invitation to go out 
 and see his shoats, in which he took infinite pride. But Uncle 
 Ripley said: "I guess I'll haf t' be goin'; I want 'o git up to 
 Jennings' before dinner." 
 
 He couldn't help feeling a little depressed when he found 
 Jennings away. The next house along the pleasant lane was inT 
 habited by a "newcomer." He was sitting on the horse-trough, 
 holding a horse's halter, while his hired man dashed cold water 
 upon the galled spot on the animal's shoulder. 
 
 After some preliminary talk Ripley presented his medicine. 
 
 "Hell, no! What do I want of such stuff? When they's any- 
 thing the matter with me, I take a lunkin' ol' swig of popple- 
 bark and bourbon! That fixes me." 
 
 Uncle Ethan moved off up the lane. He hardly felt like 
 whistling now. At the next house he set his pail down in the 
 weeds beside the fence, and went in without it. Doudney came to 
 the door in his bare feet, buttoning his suspenders over a clean 
 boiled shirt. He was dressing to go out. 
 
 "Hello, Ripley. I was just goin' down your way. Jest wait a 
 minute, an' I'll be out." 
 
 When he came out, fully dressed. Uncle Ethan grappled him. 
 
 "Say, what d' you think o' paytent med " 
 
 "Some of 'em are boss. But y' want 'o know what y're gittin'." 
 
 "What d' ye think o' Dodd's " 
 
 "Best in the market." 
 
 Uncle Ethan straightened up and his face lighted. Doudney 
 went on : 
 
 "Yes, sir; best bitter that ever went into a bottle. I know, 
 I've tried it. I don't go much on patent medicines, but when I 
 get a good " 
 
 "Don't want 'o buy a bottle ?" 
 
Uncle Ethan Ripley 191 
 
 Doudney turned and faced him. 
 
 "Buy! No. I've got nineteen bottles I want o sell." Ripley 
 glanced up at Doudney's new granary and there read "Dodd's 
 Family Bitters." He was stricken dumb. Doudney saw it all, and 
 roared. 
 
 "Wal, that's a good one! We two tryin' to sell each other bit- 
 ters. Ho — ^ho — ^ho — ^har, whoop! wal, this is rich! How many 
 bottles did you git?" 
 
 "None o' your business," said Uncle Ethan, as he turned and 
 made off, while Doudney screamed with merriment. 
 
 On his way home Uncle Ethan grew ashamed of his burden. 
 Doudney had canvassed the whole neighborhood, and he prac- 
 tically gave up the struggle. Everybody he met seemed deter- 
 mined to find out what he had been doing, and at last he began 
 lying about it. 
 
 "Hello, Uncle Ripley, what y' got there in that pail?" 
 
 "Goose eggs f'r settin'." 
 
 He disposed of one bottle to old Gus Peterson. Gus never paid 
 his debts, and he would only promise fifty cents "on tick" for 
 the bottle, and yet so desperate was Ripley that this questionable 
 sale cheered him up not a little. 
 
 As he came down the road, tired, dusty, and hungry, he climbed 
 over the fence in order to avoid seeing that sign on the barn, 
 and slunk into the house without looking back. 
 
 He couldn't have felt meaner about it if he had allowed a 
 Democratic poster to be pasted there. 
 
 The evening passed in grim silence, and in sleep he saw that 
 sign wriggling across the side of the barn like boa-constrictors 
 hung on rails. He tried to paint them out, but every time he tried 
 it the man seemed to come back with a sheriff, and savagely 
 warned him to let it stay till the year was up. In some mysterious 
 way the agent seemed to know every time he brought out the 
 paint-pot, and he was no longer the pleasant-voiced individual 
 who drove the calico ponies. 
 
 As he stepped out into the yard next morning that abominable. 
 
192 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 sickening, scrawling advertisement was the first thing that claimed 
 his glance — it blotted out the beauty of the morning. 
 
 Mrs. Ripley came to the window, buttoning her dress at the 
 throat, a wisp of her hair sticking assertively from the little knob 
 at the back of her head. 
 
 "Lovely, ain't it! An' I've got to see it all day long. I can't 
 look out the winder but that thing's right in my face." It seemed 
 to make her savage. She hadn't been in such a temper since her 
 visit to New York. "I hope you feel satisfied with it." 
 
 Ripley walked off to the barn. His pride in its clean sweet new- 
 ness was gone. He slyly tried the paint to see if it couldn't be 
 scraped ofF, but it was dried in thoroughly. Whereas before he 
 had taken delight in having his neighbors turn and look at the 
 building, now he kept out of sight whenever he saw a team com- 
 ing. He hoed corn away in the back of the field, when he should 
 have been bugging potatoes by the roadside. 
 
 Mrs. Ripley was in a frightful mood about it, but she held her- 
 self in check for several days. At last she burst forth: 
 
 "Ethan Ripley, I can't stand that thing any longer, and I ain't 
 goin' to, that's all! You've got to go and paint that thing out, or 
 I will. I'm just about crazy with it." 
 
 "But, mother, I promised " 
 
 "I don't care what you promised, it's got to be painted out. 
 I've got the nightmare now, seein' it. I'm goin' to send f'r a pail 
 o' red paint, and I'm goin' to paint that out if it takes the last 
 breath I've got to do it." 
 
 "I'll tend to it, mother, if you won't hurry me " 
 
 "I can't stand it another day. It makes me boil every time I 
 look out the winder." 
 
 Uncle Ethan hitched up his team and drove gloomily oil to 
 town, where he tried to find the agent. He lived in some other 
 part of the county, however, and so the old man gave up and 
 bought a pot of red paint, not daring to go back to his desperate 
 wife without it. 
 
 "Goin' to paint y'r new barn?" inquired the merchant, with 
 friendly interest. 
 
Uncle Ethan Ripley 193 
 
 Uncle Ethan turned with guilty sharpness; but the merchant's 
 face was grave and kindly. 
 
 "Yes, I thought I'd tech it up a little — don't cost much." 
 
 "It pays — always," the merchant said emphatically. 
 
 "Will it — stick jest as well put on evenings?" inquired Uncle 
 Ethan, hesitatingly. 
 
 "Yes — won't make any difference. Why? Ain't goin' to 
 have " 
 
 "Wal, — I kind o' thought I'd do it odd times night an' 
 mornin' — kind o' odd times " 
 
 He seemed oddly confused about it, and the merchant looked 
 after him anxiously as he drove away. 
 
 After supper that night he went out to the barn, and Mrs. 
 Ripley heard him sawing and hammering. Then the noise ceased, 
 and he came in and sat down in his usual place. 
 
 "What y' ben makin' ?" she inquired. Tewksbury had gone to 
 bed. She sat darning a stocking. 
 
 "I jest thought I'd git the stagin' ready f'r paintin'," he said, 
 evasively. 
 
 "Wal! I'll be glad when it's covered up." When she got ready 
 for bed, he was still seated in his chair, and after she had dozed 
 off two or three times she began to wonder why he didn't come. 
 When the clock struck ten, and she realized that he had not 
 stirred, she began to get impatient. "Come, are y' goin' to sit 
 there all night?" There was no reply. She rose up in bed and 
 looked about the room. The broad moon flooded it with light, 
 so that she could see he was not asleep in his chair, as she had sup- 
 posed. There was something ominous in his disappearance. 
 
 "Ethan! Ethan Ripley, where are yeh!" There was no reply 
 to her sharp call. She rose and distractedly looked about among 
 the furniture, as If he might somehow be a cat and be hiding in 
 a corner somewhere. Then she went upstairs where the boy slept, 
 her hard little heels making a curious tunking noise on the bare 
 boards. The moon fell across the sleeping boy like a robe of 
 silver. He was alone. 
 
 She began to be alarmed. Her eyes widened in fear. All sorts 
 
194 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 of vague horrors sprang unbidden into her brain. She still had 
 the mist of sleep in her brain. 
 
 She hurried down the stairs and out into the fragrant night. 
 The katydids were singing in infinite peace under the solemn 
 splendor of the moon. The cattle snifEed and sighed, jangling 
 their bells now and then, and the chickens in the coop stirred un- 
 easily as if overheated. The old woman stood there in her bare 
 feet and long nightgown, horror-stricken. The ghastly story of 
 a man who had hung himself in his barn because his wife deserted 
 him came into her mind, and stayed there with frightful per- 
 sistency. Her throat filled chokingly. 
 
 She felt a wild rush of loneliness. She had a sudden realiza- 
 tion of how dear that gaunt old figure was, with its grizzled face 
 and ready smile. Her breath came quick and quicker, and she was 
 at the point of bursting into a wild cry to Tewksbury, when she 
 heard a strange noise. It came from the barn, a creaking noise. 
 She looked that way, and saw in the shadowed side a deeper 
 shadow moving to and fro. A revulsion to astonishment and anger 
 took place in her. 
 
 "Land o' Bungay! If he ain't paintin' that barn, like a perfect 
 old idiot, in the night." 
 
 Uncle Ethan, working desperately, did not hear her feet pat- 
 tering down the path, and was startled by her shrill voice. 
 
 "Well, Ethan Ripley, whaddy y' think you're doin' now?" 
 
 He made two or three slapping passes with the brush, and then 
 snapped out, "I'm a-paintin' this barn — ^whaddy ye s'pose? If ye 
 had eyes y' wouldn't ask." 
 
 "Well, you come right straight to bed. What d'you mean by 
 actin' so?" 
 
 "You go back into the house an' let me be. I know what I'm 
 a-doin'. You've pestered me about this sign jest about enough." 
 He dabbed his brush to and fro as he spoke. His gaunt figure 
 towered above her in shadow. His slapping brush had a vicious 
 sound. 
 
 Neither spoke for some time. At length she said more gently, 
 "Ain't you comin' in?" 
 
Uncle Ethan Ripley 195 
 
 "No — not till I get a-ready. You go 'long an' tend to y'r own 
 business. Don't stan' there an' ketch cold." 
 
 She moved off slowly toward the house. His shout subdued her. 
 Working alone out there had rendered him savage; he was not 
 to be pushed any further. She knew by the tone of his voice that 
 he must now be respected. She slipped on her shoes and a shawl, 
 and came back where he was working, and took a seat on a saw- 
 horse. 
 
 "I'm goin' to set right here till you come in, Ethan Ripley," 
 she said, in a firm voice, but gentler than usual. 
 
 "Wal, you'll set a good while," was his ungracious reply, but 
 each felt a furtive tenderness for the other. He worked on in 
 silence. The boards creaked heavily as he walked to and fro, 
 and the slapping sound of the paint-brush sounded loud in the 
 sweet harmony of the night. The majestic moon swung slowly 
 round the corner of the barn, and fell upon the old man's grizzled 
 head and bent shoulders. The horses inside could be heard stamp- 
 ing the mosquitoes away, and chewing their hay in pleasant chorus. 
 
 The little figure seated on the saw-horse drew the shawl closer 
 about her thin shoulders. Her eyes were in shadow, and her 
 hands were wrapped in her shawl. At last she spoke in a curious 
 tone. 
 
 "Wal, I don't know as you was so very much to blame. I 
 didn't want that Bible myself — I held out I did, but I didn't." 
 
 Ethan worked on until the full meaning of this unprecedented 
 surrender penetrated his head, and then he threw down his brush. 
 
 "Wal, I guess I'll let 'er go at that. I've covered up the most 
 of it, anyhow. Guess we better go in." 
 
GOD'S RAVENS 
 I 
 
 Chicago has three winds that blow upon it. One comes from 
 the east, and the mind goes out to the cold gray-blue lake. One 
 from the north, and men think of illimitable spaces of pine-lands 
 and maple-clad ridges which lead to the unknown deeps of the 
 arctic woods. 
 
 But the third is the west or southwest wind, dry, magnetic, 
 full of smell of unmeasured miles of growing grain in summer, 
 or ripening corn and wheat in autumn. When it comes in winter 
 the air glitters with incredible brilliancy. The snow of the country 
 dazzles and flames in the eyes; deep-blue shadows ever5rwhere 
 stream like stains of ink. Sleigh-bells wrangle from early morning 
 till late at night, and every step is quick and alert. In the city, 
 smoke dims its clarity, but it is welcome. 
 
 But its greatest moment of domination is spring. The bitter gray 
 wind of the east has held unchecked rule for days, giving place to 
 its brother the north wind only at intervals, till some day in 
 March the wind of the southwest begins to blow. Then the eaves 
 begin to drip. Here and there a fowl (in a house that is really a 
 prison) begins to sing the song it sang on the farm, and toward 
 noon its song becomes a chant of articulate joy. 
 
 Then the poor crawl out of their reeking hovels on the south 
 and west sides to stand in the sun — the blessed sun — and felicitate 
 themselves on being alive. Windows of sick-rooms are opened, 
 the merry small boy goes to school without his tippet, and men 
 lay off their long ulsters for their beaver coats. Caps give place 
 to hats, and men and women pause to chat when they meet each 
 other on the street. The open door is the sign of the great change 
 of wind. 
 
 196 
 
God's Ravens 197 
 
 There are imaginative souls who are stirred yet deeper by this 
 wind — men like Robert Bloom, to whom come vague and very 
 sweet reminiscences of farm life when the snow is melting and 
 the dry ground begins to appear. To these people the wind comes 
 from the wide unending spaces of the prairie west. They can smell 
 the strange thrilling odor of newly uncovered sod and moist brown 
 ploughed lands. To them it is like the opening door of a prison. 
 
 Robert had crawled down-town and up to his ofEce high in the 
 Star block after a month's sickness. He had resolutely pulled a 
 pad of paper under his hand to write, but the window was open 
 and that wind coming in, and he could not write — ^he could only 
 dream. 
 
 His brown hair fell over the thin white hand which propped 
 his head. His face was like ivory with dull yellowish stains in it. 
 His eyes did not see the mountainous roofs humped and piled into 
 vast masses of brick and stone, crossed and riven by streets, and 
 swept by masses of gray-white vapor; they saw a little valley 
 circled by low-wooded bluffs — his native town in Wisconsin. 
 
 As his weakness grew his ambition fell away, and his heart 
 turned back to nature and to the things he had known in his 
 youth, to the kindly people of the olden time. It did not occur 
 to him that the spirit of the country might have changed. 
 
 Sitting thus, he had a mighty longing come upon him to give 
 up the struggle, to go back to the simplest life with his wife and 
 two boys. Why should he tread in the mill, when every day 
 was taking the life-blood out of his heart? 
 
 Slowly his longing took resolution. At last he drew his desk 
 down, and as the lock clicked it seemed like the shutting of a 
 prison gate behind him. 
 
 At the elevator door he met a fellow-editor. "Hello, Bloom! 
 Didn't know you were down to-day." 
 
 "I'm only trying it. I'm going to take a vacation for a while." 
 
 "That's right, man. You look like a ghost." 
 
 He hadn't the courage to tell him he never expected to work 
 there again. His step on the way home was firmer than it had 
 been for weeks. In his white face his wife saw some subtle change. 
 
198 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "What is it, Robert?" 
 
 "Mate, let's give it up." 
 
 "What do you mean ?" 
 
 "The struggle is too hard. I can't stand it. I'm hungry for the 
 country again. Let's get out of this." 
 
 "Where'll we go?" 
 
 "Back to my native town — up among the Wisconsin hills and 
 coulies. Go anywhere, so that we escape this pressure — it's killing 
 me. Let's go to Bluff Siding for a year. It will do me good^-may 
 bring me back to life. I can do enough special work to pay our 
 grocery bill; and the Merrill place — so Jack tells me — is empty. 
 We can get it for seventy-five dollars for a year. We can pull 
 through some way." 
 
 "Very well, Robert." 
 
 "I must have rest. All the bounce has gone out of me. Mate," 
 he said, with sad lines in his face. "Any extra w^ork here is out 
 of the question. I can only shamble around — an excuse for a 
 man." 
 
 The wife had ceased to smile. Her strenuous cheerfulness could 
 not hold before his tragically drawn and bloodless face. 
 
 "I'll go wherever you think best, Robert. It will be just as 
 well for the boys. I suppose there is a school there?" 
 
 "Oh yes. At any rate, they can get a year's schooling in nature." 
 
 "Well — no matter, Robert; you are the one to be considered." 
 She had the self-sacrificing devotion of the average woman. She 
 fancied herself hopelessly his inferior. 
 
 They had dwelt so long on the crumbling edge of poverty that 
 they were hardened to its threat, and yet the failure of Robert's 
 health had been of the sort which terrifies. It was a slow but 
 steady sinking of vital force. It had its ups and downs, but it 
 was a downward trail, always downward. The time for self- 
 deception had passed. 
 
 His paper paid him a meagre salary, for his work was prized 
 only by the more thoughtful readers of the Star. In addition to 
 his regular work he occasionally hazarded a story for the juvenile 
 
God's Ravens 199 
 
 magazines of the East. In this way he turned the antics of his 
 growing boys to account, as he often said to his wife. 
 
 He had also passed the preliminary stages of literary success 
 by getting a couple of stories accepted by an Eastern magazine, 
 and he still confidently looked forward to seeing them printed. 
 
 His wife, a sturdy, practical little body, did her part in the 
 bitter struggle by keeping their little home one of the most at- 
 tractive on the West Side, the North Side being altogether too 
 high for them. 
 
 In addition, her sorely pressed brain sought out other ways of 
 helping. She wrote out all her husband's stories on the typewriter, 
 and secretly she had tried composing others herself. The results 
 being queer dry little chronicles of the doings of men and women, 
 strung together without a touch of literary grace. 
 
 She proposed taking a large house and re-renting rooms, but 
 Robert would not hear to it. "As long as I can crawl about we'll 
 leave that to others." 
 
 In the month of preparation which followed he talked a great 
 deal about their venture. 
 
 "I want to get there," he said, "just when the leaves are coming 
 out on the trees. I want to see the cherry-trees blossom on the 
 hillsides. The popple-trees always get green first." 
 
 At other times he talked about the people. "It will be a rest 
 just to get back among people who aren't ready to tread on your 
 head in order to lift themselves up. I believe a year among those 
 kind, unhurried people will give me all the material I'll need 
 for years. I'll write a series of studies somewhat like Jeffries' — 
 or Barrie's — only, of course, I'll be original. I'll just take his plan 
 of telling about the people I meet and their queer ways, so quaint 
 and good." 
 
 "I'm tired of the scramble," he kept breaking out of silence to 
 say. "I don't blame the boys, but it's plain to me they see that my 
 going will let them move up one. Mason cynically voiced the 
 whole thing today : 'I can say, "sorry to see you go. Bloom," because 
 your going doesn't concern me. I'm not in line of succession, but 
 some of the other boys don't feel so. There's no divinity doth 
 
200 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 hedge an editor; nothing but law prevents the murder of those 
 above by those below.' " 
 
 "I don't like Mr. Mason when he talks like that," said the 
 wife. 
 
 "Well — I don't." He didn't tell her what Mason said when 
 Robert talked about the good simple life of the people in Bluff 
 Siding : 
 
 "Oh, bosh, Bloom! You'll find the struggle of the outside world 
 reflected in your little town. You'll find men and women just as 
 hard and selfish in their small way. It'll be harder to bear, be- 
 cause it will all be so petty and pusillanimous." 
 
 It was a lovely day in late April when they took the train out 
 of the great grimy terrible city. It was eight o'clock, but the 
 streets were muddy and wet, a cold east wind blowing off the 
 lake. 
 
 With clanging bell the train moved away piercing the ragged 
 gray formless mob of houses and streets (through which railways 
 always run in a city). Men were hurrying to work, and Robert 
 pitied them, poor fellows, condemned to do that thing forever. 
 
 In an hour they reached the prairies, already clothed upon 
 faintly with green grass and tender springing wheat. The purple- 
 brown squares reserved for the corn looked deliciously soft and 
 warm to the sick man, and he longed to set his bare feet into it. 
 
 His boys were wild with delight. They had the natural love 
 of the earth still in them, and correspondingly cared little for the 
 city. They raced through the cars like colts. They saw everything. 
 Every blossoming plant, every budding tree, was precious to them 
 all. 
 
 All day they rode. Toward noon they left the sunny prairie- 
 land of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, and entered 
 upon the hill-land of Madison and beyond. As they went north, 
 the season was less advanced, but spring was in the fresh wind 
 and the warm sunshine. 
 
 As evening drew on, the hylas began to peep from the pools, 
 and their chorus deepened as they came on toward Bluff Siding, 
 
God's Ravens 201 
 
 which seemed very small, very squalid, and uninteresting, but 
 Robert pointed at the circling wine-colored wall of hills and the 
 warm sunset sky. 
 
 "We're in luck to find a hotel," said Robert. "They burn down 
 every three months." 
 
 They were met by a middle-aged man, and conducted across 
 the road to a hotel, which had been a roller-skating rink in other 
 days, and was not prepossessing. However, they were ushered into 
 the parlor, which resembled the sitting-room of a rather ambi- 
 tious village home, and there they took seats, while the landlord 
 consulted about rooms. 
 
 The wife's heart sank. From the window she could see sev- 
 eral of the low houses, and far o£E just the hills which seemed 
 to make the town so very small, very lonely. She was not given 
 time to shed tears. The children clamored for food, tired and 
 cross. 
 
 Robert went out into the office, where he signed his name 
 under the close and silent scrutiny of a half-dozen roughly clad 
 men, who sat leaning against the wall. They were merely 
 working-men to him, but in Mrs. Bloom's eyes they were 
 dangerous people. 
 
 The landlord looked at the name as Robert wrote. "Your 
 boxes are all here," he said. 
 
 Robert looked up at him in surprise. "What boxes?" 
 
 "Your household goods. They came in on No. 9." 
 
 Robert recovered himself. He remembered this was a village 
 where everything that goes on — everything — is known. 
 
 The stairway rose picturesquely out of the office to the low 
 second story, and up these stairs they tramped to their tiny 
 rooms which were like cells. 
 
 "Oh, mamma, ain't it queer?" cried the boys. 
 
 "Supper is all ready," the landlord's soft, deep voice an- 
 nounced a few moments later, and the boys responded with 
 whoops of hunger. 
 
 They were met by the close scrutiny of every boarder as 
 
202 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 they entered, and they heard also the muttered comments and 
 explanations. 
 
 "Family to take the Merrill house." 
 
 "He looks purty well flaxed out, don't he?" 
 
 They were agreeably surprised to find everything neat and 
 clean and wholesome. The bread was good and the butter 
 delicious. Their spirits revived. 
 
 "That butter tastes like old times," said Robert. "It's fresh. 
 It's really butter." 
 
 They made a hearty meal, and the boys, being filled up, grew 
 sleepy. After they were put to bed Robert said, "Now, Mate, 
 let's go see the house." 
 
 They walked out arm in arm like lovers. Her sturdy form 
 steadied liim, though he would not have acknowledged it. The 
 red flush was not yet gone from the west, and the hills still 
 kept a splendid tone of purple-black. It was very clear, the 
 stars were out, the wind deliciously soft. "Isn't it still?" Robert 
 almost whispered. 
 
 They walked on under the budding trees up the hill, till 
 they came at last to the small frame house set under tall maples 
 and locust-trees, just showing a feathery fringe of foliage. 
 
 "This is our home," said Robert. 
 
 Mate leaned on the gate in silence. Frogs were peeping. The 
 smell of spring was in the air. There was a magnificent repose 
 in the hour, restful, recreating, impressive. 
 
 "Oh, it's beautiful, Robert! I know we shall like it." 
 
 "We must like it," he said. 
 
 II 
 
 First contact with the people disappointed Robert. In the 
 work of moving in he had to do with people who work at day's 
 work, and the fault was his more than theirs. He forgot that 
 they did not consider their work degrading. They resented his 
 bossing. The drayman grew rebellious. 
 
 "Look a-here, my Christian friend, if you'll go 'long in the 
 
God's Ravens p" r'V, 203 
 
 house and let us alone it'll be a good job. We knoW what 
 we're about." 
 
 This was not pleasant, and he did not perceive the trouble. 
 In the same way he got foul of the carpenter and the man who>/ 
 ploughed his garden. Some way his tone was not right. His ^ 
 voice was cold and distant. He generally found that the men 
 knew better than he what was to be done and how to do it; 
 and sometimes he felt like apologizing, but their attitude had 
 changed till apology was impossible. 
 
 He had repelled their friendly advances because he consid- 
 ered them (without meaning to do so) as workmen, and not 
 as neighbors. They reported, therefore, that he was cranky and 
 rode a high horse. 
 
 "He thinks he's a little tin god on wheels," the drayman said. 
 
 "Oh, he'll get over that," said McLane. "I knew the boy's 
 folks years ago — tiptop folks, too. He ain't well, and that 
 makes him a little crusty." 
 
 "That's the trouble — he thinks he's an upper crust," said 
 Jim Cullen, the drayman. 
 
 At the end of ten days they were settled, and nothing re- 
 mained to do but plan a little garden and — get well. The boys, 
 with their unspoiled natures, were able to melt into the ranks 
 of the village-boy life at once, with no more friction than was 
 indicated by a couple of rough-and-tumble fights. They were 
 sturdy fellows, like their mother, and these fights gave them 
 high rank. 
 
 Robert got along in a dull, smooth way with his neighbors. 
 He was too formal with them. He met them only at the meat- 
 shop and the post-office. They nodded genially, and said, "Got 
 settled yet?" And he replied, "Quite comfortable, thank you." 
 They felt his coldness. Conversation halted when he came near, 
 and made him feel that he was the subject of their talk. As a 
 matter of fact, he generally was. He was a source of great 
 speculation with them. Some of them had gone so far as to bet 
 he wouldn't live a year. They all seemed grotesque to him, so 
 work-scarred and bent and hairy. Even the men whose names 
 
204 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 he had known from childhood were queer to him. They seemed 
 shy and distant, too, not like his ideas of them. 
 
 To Mate they were almost caricatures. "What makes them 
 look so — so 'way behind the times, Robert?" 
 
 "Well, I suppose they are," said Robert. "Life in these 
 coulies goes on rather slower than in Chicago. Then there are 
 a great many Welsh and Germans and Norwegians, living 
 'way up the coulies, and they're the ones you notice. They're 
 not all so." He^could be generous towardthem in general; it 
 was in special cases where he failed to .know, them. 
 
 They had been there nearly two weeks without meeting any 
 of them socially, and Robert was beginning to change his 
 opinion about them. "They let us severely alone," he was say- 
 ing one night to his wife. 
 
 "It's very odd. I wonder what I'd better do, Robert? I don't 
 know the etiquette of these small towns. I never lived in one 
 before, you know. Whether I ought to call first — and, good 
 gracious, who'll I call on? I'm in the dark." 
 
 "So am I, to tell the truth. I haven't lived in one of these 
 small towns since I was a lad. I have a faint recollection that 
 introductions were absolutely necessary. They have an etiquette 
 which is as binding as that of McAllister's Four Hundred, but 
 what it is I don't know." 
 
 "Well, we'll wait." 
 
 "The boys ate perfectly at home," said Robert, with a little 
 emphasis on boys, which was the first indication of his dis- 
 appointment. The people he had failed to reach. 
 
 There came a knock on the door that startled them both. 
 "Come in," said Robert, in a nervous shout. 
 
 "Land sakes! did I scare ye? Seem so, way ye yelled," said 
 a high-keyed nasal voice, and a tall woman came in, followed by 
 an equally stalwart man. 
 
 "How d'e do, Mrs. Folsom? My wife, Mr. Folsom." 
 
 Folsom's voice was lost in the bustle of getting settled, but 
 Mrs. Folsom's voice rose above the clamor. "I was tellin' him 
 it was about time we got neighborly. I never let anybody come 
 
God's Ravens 205 
 
 to town a week without callin' on 'em. It does a body a heap o' good 
 to see a face outside the family once in a while, specially in a 
 new place. How do you like up here on the hill?" 
 
 "Very much. The view is so fine." 
 
 "Yes, I s'pose it is. Still, it ain't my notion. I don't like to 
 climb hills well enough. Still, I've heard of people buildin' 
 just for the view. It's all in taste, as the old woman said that 
 kissed the cow." ■ ' ■ 
 
 There was an element of shrewdness and self-analysis in 
 Mrs. Folsom which saved her from being grotesque. She knew 
 she was queer to Mrs. Bloom, but she did not resent it. She 
 was still young in form and face, but her teeth were gone, 
 and, like so many of her neighbors, she was too poor to replace 
 them from the dentist's. She wore a decent calico dress and a 
 shawl and hat. 
 
 As she talked her eyes took in every article of furniture in 
 the room, and every little piece of fancy-work and bric-a-brac. 
 In fac^ she reproduced the pattern of one of the tidies within 
 two days. 
 
 Folsom sat dumbly in his chair. Robert, who met him now 
 as a neighbor for the first time, tried to talk with him, but 
 failed, and turned himself gladly to Mrs. Folsom, who de- 
 lighted him with her vigorous phrases. 
 
 "Oh, we're a-movin', though you wouldn't think it. This 
 town is filled with a lot of old skinflints. Close ain't no name for 
 'em. Jest ask Folsom thar about 'em. He's been buildin' their 
 houses for 'em. Still, I suppose they say the same thing o' me," 
 she added, with a touch of humor which always saved her. She 
 used a man's phrases. "We're always ready to tax some other 
 feller, but we kick like mules when the tax falls on us," she 
 went on. "My land! the fight we've had to git sidewalks in this 
 town !" 
 
 "You should be mayor." 
 
 "That's what I tell Folsom. Takes a woman to clean things 
 up. Well, I must run along. Thought I'd jest call in and see 
 how you all was. Come down when ye kin." 
 
2o6 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Thank you, I will." 
 
 After they had gone Robert turned with a smile: "Our first 
 formal call." 
 
 "Oh, dear, Robert, what can I do with such people?" 
 
 "Go see 'em. I like her. She's shrewd. You'll like her, too." 
 
 "But what can I say to such people? Did you hear her say 
 'we fellers' to me?" 
 
 Robert laughed. "That's nothing. She feels as much of a man, 
 or 'feller,' as any one. Why shouldn't she?" 
 
 "But she's so vulgar." 
 
 "I admit she isn't elegant, but I think she's a good wife and 
 mother." 
 
 "I wonder if they're all like that?" 
 
 "Now, Mate, we must try not to offend them. We must try 
 to be one of them." 
 
 But this was easier said than done. As he went down to the 
 post-ofSce and stood waiting for his mail like the rest he tried 
 to enter into conversation with them, but mainly they, moved 
 away from him. William McTurg nodded at him and said, 
 "How de do?" and McLane asked how he liked his new place, 
 and that was about all. 
 
 He couldn't reach them. They suspected him. They had only 
 the estimate of the men who had worked for him; and, while 
 they were civil, they plainly didn't need him in the slightest 
 degree, except as a topic of conversation. 
 
 He did not improve as he had hoped to do. The spring was 
 wet and cold, the most rainy and depressing the valley had seen 
 in many years. Day after day the rain-clouds sailed in over the 
 northern hills and deluged the flat little town with water, till 
 the frogs sang in every street, till the main street mired down 
 every team that drove into it. 
 
 The corn rotted in the earth, but the grass grew tall and 
 yellow-green, the trees glistened through the gray air, and the 
 hills were like green jewels of incalculable worth, when the 
 sun shone, at sweet infrequent intervals. 
 
 The cold and damp struck through into the alien's heart. It 
 
God's Ravens 207 
 
 seemed to prophesy his dark future. He sat at his desk and 
 looked out into the gray rain with gloomy eyes — a prisoner when j 
 he had expected to be free. 
 
 He had failed in his last venture. He had not gained any 
 power — he was really weaker than ever. The rain had kept him 
 confined to the house. The joy he had anticipated of tracing 
 out all his boyish pleasure haunts was cut off. He had relied, 
 too, upon that as a source of literary power. 
 
 He could not do much more than walk down to the post- 
 ofEce and back on the pleasantest days. A few people called, but 
 he could not talk to them, and they did not call again. 
 
 In the mean while his little bank-account was vanishing. The 
 boys were strong and happy; that was his only comfort. And his 
 wife seemed strong, too. She had little time to get lonesome. 
 
 He grew morbid. His weakness and insecurity made him 
 jealous of the security and health of others. 
 
 He grew almost to hate the people as he saw them coming , 
 and going in the mud, or heard their loud hearty voices sound'. ! 
 ing from the street. He hated their gossip, their dull jokes. The / 
 flat little town grew vulgar and low and desolate to him. 
 
 Every little thing which had amused him now annoyed him. 
 The cut of their beards worried him. Their voices jarred upon 
 him. Every day or two he broke forth to his wife in long tirades 
 of abuse. 
 
 "Oh, I can't stand these people! They don't know anything. 
 They talk every rag of gossip into shreds. 'Taters, fish, hops; 
 hops, fish, and 'taters. j^ They've saved and pinched and toiled 
 fliir their souls are pinched and ground awayH You're right. 
 They are caricatures. They don't read or think about anything 
 in which I'm interested. This life is nerve-destroying. Talk 
 about the health of the village life! It destroys body and soul. 
 It debilitates me. It will warp us both down to the level of 
 these people." 
 
 She tried to stop him, but he went on, a flush of fever on his 
 cheek : 
 
 "They degrade the nature they have touched. Their squat 
 
2o8 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 little town is a caricature like themselves. Everything they 
 touch they belittle. Here they sit while sidewalks rot and teams 
 mire in the streets." 
 
 He raged on like one demented — ^bitter, accusing, rebellious. 
 In such a mood he could not write. In place of inspiring him, the 
 little town and its people seemed to undermine his power and turn 
 his sweetness of spirit into gall and acid. He only bowed to them 
 now as he walked feebly among them, and they excused it by re- 
 ferring to his sickness. They eyed him each time with pitying eyes. 
 "He's failin' fast," they said among themselves. 
 
 One day, as he was returning from the post-ofEce, he felt blind 
 for a moment and put his hand to his head. The world of vivid 
 green grew gray, and life receded from him into illimitable dis- 
 tance. He had one dim fading glimpse of a shaggy-bearded face 
 looking down at him, and felt the clutch of an iron-hard strong 
 arm under him, and then he lost hold even on so much conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 He came back slowly, rising out of immeasurable deeps toward 
 a distant light which was like the mouth of a well filled with 
 clouds of misty vapor. Occasionally he saw a brown big hairy 
 face floating in over this lighted horizon, to smile kindly and go 
 away again. Others came with shaggy beards. He heard a cheery 
 tenor voice which he recognized, and then another face, a big 
 brown smiling face; very lovely it looked now to him — almost 
 as lovely as his wife's, which floated in from the other side. 
 
 "He's all right now," said the cheery tenor voice from the 
 big bearded face. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. McTurg, do you think so?" 
 
 "Ye-e-s, sir. He's all right. The fever's left him. Brace up, old 
 man. We need ye yit awhile." Then all was silent again. 
 
 The well-mouth cleared away its mist again, and he saw more 
 clearly. Part of the time he knew he was in bed staring at the 
 ceiling. Part of the time the well-mouth remained closed in with 
 clouds. 
 
 Gaunt old women put spoons of delicious broth to his lips, and 
 
 , h 'li ■ 
 
God's Ravens 209 
 
 their toothless mouths had kindly lines about them. He heard 
 their high voices sounding faintly. 
 
 "Now, Mis' Bloom, jest let Mis' Folsom an' me attend to 
 things out here. We'll get supper for the boys, an' you jest go an' 
 lay down. We'll take care of him. Don't worry. Bell's a good 
 hand with sick." 
 
 Then the light came again, and he heard a robin singing, and a 
 cat-bird squalled softly, pitifully. He could see the ceiling again. 
 He lay on his back, with his hands on his breast. He felt as if he 
 had been dead. He seemed to feel his body as if it were an alien 
 thing. 
 
 "How are you, sir?" called the laughing, thrillingly hearty voice 
 of William McTurg. 
 
 He tried to turn his head, but it wouldn't move. He tried to 
 speak, but his dry throat made no noise. 
 
 The big man bent over him. "Want 'o change place a little?" 
 
 He closed his eyes in answer. 
 
 A giant arm ran deftly under his shoulders and turned him as 
 if he were an infant, and a new part of the good old world burst 
 on his sight. The sunshine streamed in the windows through a 
 waving screen of lilac leaves and fell upon the carpet in a price- 
 less flood of radiance. 
 
 There sat William McTurg smiling at him. He had no coat 
 on and no hat, and his bushy thick hair rose up from his fore- 
 head like thick marsh-grass. He looked to be the embodiment of 
 sunshine and health. Sun and air were in his brown face, and 
 the perfect health of a fine animal was in his huge limbs. He looked 
 at Robert with a smile that brought a strange feeling into his 
 throat. It made him try to speak; at last he whispered. 
 
 The great figure bent closer: "What is it?" 
 
 "Thank— you." 
 
 William laughed a low chuckle. "Don't bother about thanks. 
 Would you like some water?" 
 
 A tall figure joined Williani, awkwardly. 
 
 "Hello, Evan!" 
 
 "How is he. Bill?" 
 
2IO Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "He's awake to-day." 
 
 "That's good. Anything I can do?" 
 
 "No, I guess not. All he needs is somethin' to eat." 
 
 "I jest brought a chicken up, an' some jell an' things the women 
 sent. I'll stay with him till twelve, then Folsom will come in." 
 
 Thereafter he lay hearing the robins laugh and the orioles 
 whistle, and then the frogs and katydids at night. These men with 
 greasy vests and unkempt beards came in every day. They bathed 
 him, and helped him to and from the bed. They helped to dress 
 him and move him to the window, where he could look out on 
 the blessed green of the grass. 
 
 O God, it was so beautiful! It was a lover's joy only to live, 
 to look into these radiant vistas again. A catbird was singing in 
 the currant-hedge, A robin was hopping across the lawn. The 
 voices of the children sounded soft and jocund across the road. 
 And the sunshine — "Beloved Christ, Thy sunshine falling upon 
 my feet!" His soul ached with the joy of it, and when his wife 
 came in she found him sobbing like a child. 
 
 They seemed never to weary in his service. They lifted him 
 about, and talked to him in loud and hearty voices which roused 
 him like fresh winds from free spaces. 
 
 He heard the women busy with things in the kitchen. He often 
 saw them loaded with things to eat passing his window, and 
 often his wife came in and knelt down at his bed. 
 
 "Oh, Robert, they're so good ! They feed us like God's ravens." 
 
 One day, as he sat at the window fully dressed for the fourth 
 or fifth time, William McTurg came up the walk. 
 
 "Well, Robert, how are ye to-day?" 
 
 "First rate, William," he smiled. "I believe I can walk out a 
 little if you'll help me." 
 
 "All right, sir." 
 
 And he went forth leaning on William's arm, a piteous wraith 
 of a man. 
 
 On every side the golden June sunshine fell, filling the valley 
 from purple brim to purple brim. Down over the hill to the west 
 the light poured, tangled and glowing in the plum and cherry 
 
God's Ravens 211 
 
 trees, leaving this glistening grass spraying through the elms, 
 and flinging streamers of pink across the shaven green slopes where 
 the cattle fed. 
 
 On every side he saw kindly faces and heard hearty voices: 
 "Good day, Robert. Glad to see you out again." It thrilled him 
 to hear them call him by his first name. 
 
 His heart swelled till he could hardly breathe. The passion of 
 living came back upon him, shaking, uplifting him. His pallid 
 lips moved. His face was turned to the sky. 
 
 "O God, let me live ; It is so beautiful ! O God, give me strength 
 again ! Keep me in the light of the sun ! Let me see the green grass 
 come and go!" 
 
 He turned to William with trembling lips, trying to speak: 
 
 "Oh, I understand you now. I know you all now." 
 
 But William did not understand him. 
 
 "There! there!" he said, soothingly. "I guess you're gettin' 
 tired." He led Robert back and put him to bed. 
 
 "I'd know but we was a little brash about goin' out," William 
 said to him, as Robert lay there smiling up at him. 
 
 "Oh, I'm all right now," the sick man said. 
 
 "Matie," the alien cried, when William had gone, "we know 
 our neighbors now, don't we ? We never can ha^Tor-ridicule them 
 again." 
 
 "Yes, Robert. They never will be caricatures again — to m^" 
 
A "GOOD FELLOW'S" WIFE 
 I 
 
 Life in the small towns of the older West moves slowly — 
 almost as slowly as in the seaport villages or little towns of the 
 East. Towns like Tyre and Bluff Siding have grown during the 
 last twenty years, but very slowly, by almost imperceptible de- 
 grees. Lying too far away from the Mississippi to be affected by 
 the lumber interest, they are merely trading-points for the farmers, 
 with no perceivable germs of boom in their quiet life. 
 
 A stranger coming into Belfast, Minnesota, excites much the 
 same languid but persistent inquiry as in Belfast, New Hampshire. 
 Juries of men, seated on salt-barrels and nail-kegs, discuss the 
 stranger's appearance and his probable action, just as in Kittery, 
 Maine, but with a lazier speech-tune, and with a shade less of 
 apparent interest. 
 
 On such a rainy day as comes in May after the corn is planted 
 — a cold, wet rainy day — the usual crowd was gathered in Wil- 
 son's grocery-store at Bluff Siding, a small town in "The Coally 
 Country." They were farmers, for the most part, retired from 
 active service. Their coats were of cheap diagonal or cassimere, 
 much faded and burned by the sun; their hats, flapped about by 
 winds and soaked with countless rains, were also of the same yel- 
 low-brown tints. One or two wore paper collars on their hickory 
 shirts. 
 
 Mcllvaine, farmer and wheat-buyer, wore a paper collar and 
 a butterfly necktie, as befitted a man of his station in life. He was 
 a short, squarely made Scotchman, with sandy whiskers much 
 grayed, and with a keen, intensely blue eye. 
 
 "Say," called McPhail, ex-sheriff of the county, in the silence 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 213 
 
 that followed some remark about the rain, "any o' you feller? 
 had any talk with this feller Sanford ?" 
 
 "I hain't," said Vance. "You, Bill?" 
 
 "No; but somebody was sayin' he thought o' startin' in trade 
 here." 
 
 "Don't Sam know? He generally knows what's goin' on." 
 
 "Knows he registered from Pittsfield, Mass., an' that's all. 
 Say, that's a mighty smart-lookin' woman o' his." 
 
 "Vance always sees how the women look. Where'd you see herV 
 
 "Came in here the other day to look up prices." 
 
 "Wha'd she say 'bout settlin'?" 
 
 "Hadn't decided yet." 
 
 "He's too slick to have much business in him. That waxed 
 martache gives 'im away." 
 
 The discussion having reached that point where his word would 
 have most effect, Steve Gilbert said, while opening the hearth to 
 rap out the ashes of his pipe, "Sam's wife heerd that he was kind 
 o' thinkin' some of goin' into business here, if things suited 'im 
 first-rate." 
 
 They all knew the old man was aching to tell something, but 
 they didn't purpose to gratify him by any questions. The rain 
 dripped from the awning in front, and fell upon the roof of the 
 storeroom at the back with a soft and steady roar. 
 
 "Good f'r the corn," McPhail said, after a long pause. 
 
 "Purty cold, though." 
 
 Gilbert was tranquil — ^he had a shot in reserve. 
 
 "Sam's wife said his wife said he was thinkin* some of goin' 
 into a bank here " 
 
 "A bank!" 
 
 "What in thunder - 
 
 Vance turned, with a comical look on his long, placid face, 
 one hand stroking his beard. 
 
 "Well, now, gents, I'll tell you what's the matter with this 
 town. It needs a bank. Yes, sir ! I need a bank." 
 
 "You?" 
 
214 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Yes, me. I didn't know just what did ail me, but I do now. 
 It's the need of a bank that keeps me down." 
 
 "Well, you fellers can talk an' laugh, but I tell yeh they'sa 
 boom goin' to strike this town. It's got to come. W'y. just look 
 at Lumberville!" 
 
 "Their boom is our bust," was McPhail's comment. 
 
 "I don't think so," said Sanford, who had entered in time to 
 hear these last two speeches. They all looked at him with deep 
 interest. He was a smallish man. He wore a derby hat and a neat 
 suit. "I've looked things over pretty close — a man don't like to 
 invest his capital" (here the rest looked at one another) "till he 
 does ; and I believe there's an opening for a bank." 
 
 As he dwelt upon the scheme from day to day, the citizens 
 warmed to him, and he became "Jim" Sanford. He hired a little 
 cottage, and went to housekeeping at once; but the entire summer 
 went by before he made his decision to settle. In fact, it was in 
 the last week of August that the little paper announced it in the 
 usual style : 
 
 Mr. James G. Sanford, popularly known as "Jim," has decided to 
 open an exchange bank for the convenience of our citizens, who have 
 hitherto been forced to transact business in Lumberville. The thanks of 
 the town are due Mr. Sanford, who comes well recommended from 
 Massachusetts and from Milwaukee, and, better still, with a bag of 
 ducats. Mr. S. will be well patronized. Success, Jim! 
 
 The bank was open by the time the corn-crop and the hogs 
 were being marketed, and money was received on deposit while 
 the carpenters were still at work on the building. Everybody knew 
 now that he was as solid as oak. 
 
 He had taken into the bank, as bookkeeper, Lincoln Bingham, 
 one of McPhail's multitudinous nephews; and this was a capital 
 move. Everybody knew Link, and knew he was a McPhail, which 
 meant that he "could be tied to in all kinds o* weather." Of 
 course the McPhails, Mcllvaines, and the rest of the Scotch con- 
 tingency "banked on Link." As old Andrew McPhail put it: 
 
 "Link's there, an' he knows the bank an* books, an' just how 
 things stand" ; and so when he sold his hogs he put the whole sum 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 215 
 
 — over fifteen hundred dollars — into the bank. The Mcllvaines 
 and the Binghams did the same, and the bank was at once firmly 
 established among the farmers. 
 
 Only two people held out against Sanford, old Freeme Cole 
 and Mrs. Bingham, Lincoln's mother; but they didn't count, for 
 Freeme hadn't a cent, and Mrs. Bingham was too unreasoning 
 in her opposition. She could only say: "I don't like him, that's 
 all. I knowed a man back in New York that curled his tw at- 
 taches just that way, an' he wa'nt no earthly good." 
 
 It might have been said by a cynic that Banker Sanford had all 
 the virtues of a defaulting bank cashier. He had no bad habits 
 beyond smoking. He was genial, companionable, and especially 
 ready to help when sickness came. When old Freeme Cole got 
 down with delirium tremens that winter, Sanford was one of the 
 most heroic of nurses, and the service was so clearly disinterested 
 and magnanimous that every one spoke of it. 
 
 His wife and he were included in every dance or picnic; for 
 Mrs. Sanford was as great a favorite as the banker himself, she 
 was so sincere, and her gray eyes were so charmingly frank, and 
 then she said "such funny things." 
 
 "I wish I had something to do besides housework. It's a kind of 
 a putterin' job, best ye can do," she'd say, merrily, just to see 
 the others stare. "There's too much moppin' an' dustin'. Seems 
 's if a woman used up half her life on things that don't amount 
 to anything, don't it?" 
 
 "I tell yeh that feller's a scallywag. I know it buh the way 'e 
 walks 'long the sidewalk," Mrs. Bingham insisted to her son, who 
 wished her to put her savings into the bank. 
 
 The youngest of a large family. Link had been accustomed all 
 his life to Mrs. Bingham's many whimsicalities. 
 
 "I s'pose you can smell he's a thief, just as you can tell when 
 it's goin' to rain, or the butter's comin', by the smell." 
 
 "Well, you needn't laugh, Lincoln. I can," maintained the old 
 lady, stoutly. "An' I ain't goin' to put a red cent o' my money into 
 his pocket — f'r there's where it 'ud go to." 
 
 She yielded at last, and received a little bank-book in return 
 
2i6 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 for her money. "Jest about all I'll ever get," she said, privately; 
 and thereafter out of her brass-bowed spectacles with an eagle's 
 gaze she watched the banker go by. But the banker, seeing the 
 dear old soul at the window looking out at him, always smiled 
 and bowed, unaware of her suspicion. 
 
 At the end of the year he bought the lot next his rented house, 
 and began building one of his own, a modest little affair, shaped 
 like a pork-pie with a cupola, or a Tam-o'-Shanter cap — a style 
 of architecture which became fashionable at once. 
 
 He worked heroically to get the location of the plow-factory at 
 Bluff Siding, and all but succeeded; but Tyre, once their ally, 
 turned against them, and refused to consider the fact of the 
 Siding's position at the centre of the county. However, for some 
 reason or other, the town woke up to something of a boom dur- 
 ing the next two years. Several large farmers decided to retire and 
 live off the sweat of some other fellow's brow, and so built some 
 houses of the pork-pie order, and moved into town. 
 
 This inflow of moneyed men from the country resulted in the 
 establishment of a "seminary of learning" on the hillside, where 
 the Soldiers' Home was to be located. This called in more 
 farmers from the country, and a new hotel was built, a sash- 
 and-door factory followed, and Burt McPhail set up a feed- 
 mill. 
 
 All this improvement unquestionably dated from the opening 
 of the bank, and the most unreasoning partisans of the banker 
 held him to be the chief cause of the resulting development of 
 the town, though he himself modestly disclaimed any hand in the 
 affair. 
 
 Had Bluff Siding been a city, the highest civic honors would 
 have been open to Banker Sanford ; indeed, his name was repeatedly 
 mentioned in connection with the county offices. 
 
 "No, gentlemen," he explained, firmly, but courteously, in Wil- 
 son's store one night; "I'm a banker, not a politician. I can't 
 ride two horses." 
 
 In the second year of the bank's history he went up to the north 
 part of the state on business, visiting West Superior, Duluth, 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 217 
 
 Ashland, and other booming towns, and came back full of the 
 wonders of what he saw. 
 
 "There's big money up there, Nell," he said to his wife. 
 
 But she had the woman's tendency to hold last to what she 
 had, and would not listen to any plans about moving. 
 
 "Build up your business here, Jim, and don't worry about 
 what good chances there are somewhere else." 
 
 He said no more about it, but he took great interest in all 
 the news the "boys" brought back from their annual deer-hunts 
 "up north." They were all enthusiastic over West Superior and 
 Duluth, and their wonderful development was the never-ending 
 theme of discussion in Wilson's store. 
 
 II 
 
 The first two years of the bank's history were solidly success- 
 ful, and "Jim" and "Nellie" were the head and front of all good 
 works, and the provoking cause of most of the fun. No one seemed 
 more care-free. 
 
 "We consider ourselves just as young as anybody," Mrs. San- 
 lord would say, when joked about going out with the young 
 people so much; but sometimes at home, after the children were 
 asleep, she sighed a little. 
 
 "Jim, I wish you was in some kind of a business so I could 
 help. I don't have enough to do. I s'pose I could mop an' dust, an' 
 dust an' mop; but it seems sinful to waste time that way. Can't 
 I do anything, Jim?" 
 
 "Why, no. If you 'tend to the children and keep house, that's 
 all anybody asks of you." 
 
 She was silent, but not convinced. She had a desire to do 
 something outside the walls of her house — a desire transmitted 
 to her from her father, for a woman inherits these things. 
 
 In the spring of the second year a number of the depositors 
 drew out money to invest in Duluth and Superior lots, and the 
 whole town was excited over the matter. 
 
 The summer passed. Link and Sanford spending their time in 
 the bank — that is, when not out swimming or fishing with the 
 
2i8 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 boys. But July and August were terribly hot and dry, and oats 
 and corn were only half-crop, and the farmers were grumbling. 
 Some of them were forced to draw on the bank instead of 
 depositing. 
 
 McPhail came in, one day in November, to draw a thousand 
 dollars to pay for a house and lot he had recently bought. 
 
 Sanford was alone. He whistled. "Phew! You're comin' at me 
 hard. Come in to-morrow. Link's gone down to the city to get 
 some money." 
 
 "All right," said McPhail; "any time." 
 "Coin' t' snow?" 
 
 "Looks like it. I'll haf to load a lot o' ca'tridges ready f'r biz." 
 
 About an hour later old lady Bingham burst upon the banker, 
 wild and breathless. "I want my money," she announced. 
 
 "Good-morning, Mrs. Bingham. Pleasant " 
 
 "I want my money. Where's Lincoln?" 
 
 She had read that morning of two bank failures — one in Nova 
 Scotia and one in Massachusetts — and they seemed providential 
 warnings to her. Lincoln's absence confirmed them. 
 
 "He's gone to St. Paul — ^won't be back till the five-o'clock train. 
 Do you need some money this morning? How much?" 
 
 "AH of it, sir. Every cent." 
 
 Sanford saw something was out of gear. He tried to explain. 
 "I've sent your son to St. Paul after some money " 
 
 "Where's my money? What have you done with that?" In her 
 excitement she thought of her money just as she had handed it in 
 — silver and little rolls and wads of bills. 
 
 "If you'll let me explain " 
 
 "I don't want you to explain nawthin'. Jest hand me out my 
 money." 
 
 Two or three loafers, seeing her gesticulate, stopped on the 
 walk outside and looked in at the door. Sanford was annoyed, but 
 he remained calm and persuasive. He saw that something had 
 caused a panic in the good, simple old woman. He wished for 
 Lincoln as one wishes for a policeman sometimes. 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Bingham, if you'll only wait till Lincoln " 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 219 
 
 "I don't want 'o wait. I want my money, right now." 
 
 "Will fifty dollars do?" 
 
 "No, sir; I want it all — every cent of it — ^jest as it was." 
 
 "But I can't do that. Your money is gone " 
 
 "Gone? Where is it gone? What have you done with it? You 
 thief " 
 
 " 'Shi" He tried to quiet her. "I mean I can't give you your 
 money " 
 
 "Why can't you?" she stormed, trotting nervously on her feet 
 as she stood there. 
 
 "Because — if you'd let me explain — vrt don't keep the money 
 just as it comes to us. We pay it out, and take in other " 
 
 Mrs. Bingham was getting more and more bewildered. She 
 now had only one clear idea — she couldn't get her money. Her 
 voice grew tearful like an angry child's. 
 
 "I want my money — I knew you'd steal it — that I worked for. 
 Give me my money." 
 
 Sanford hastily handed her some money. "Here's fifty dollars. 
 You can have the rest when " 
 
 The old lady clutched the money, and literally ran out of the 
 door, and went off up the sidewalk, talking incoherently. To every 
 one she met she told her story; but the men smiled and passed 
 on. They had heard her predictions of calamity before. 
 
 But Mrs. Mcllvaine was made a trifle uneasy by it. "He 
 wouldn't give you y'r money? Or did he say he couldn'tV she 
 inquired, in her moderate way. 
 
 "He couldn't, an' he wouldn't!" she said. "If you've got any 
 money there, you'd better get it out quick. It ain't safe a minute. 
 When Lincoln comes home I'm goin' to see if I can't " 
 
 "Well, I was calc'latin' to go to Lumberville this week, any- 
 way, to buy a carpet and a chamber set. I guess I might 's well 
 get the money to-day." 
 
 When she came in and demanded the money, Sanford was 
 scared. Were these two old women the beginning of the deluge? 
 Would McPhail insist on being paid also? There was just one 
 
220 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 hundred dollars left in the bank, together with a little silver. 
 With rare strategy he smiled. 
 
 "Certainly, Mrs. Mcllvaine. How much will you need?" 
 
 She had intended to demand the whole of her deposit — one 
 hundred and seventeen dollars — but his readiness mollified her a 
 little. I did 'low I'd take the hull, but I guess seventy-five dollars 
 '11 do." 
 
 He paid the money briskly out over the little glass shelf. "How 
 is your children, Mrs. Mcllvaine?" 
 
 "Purty well, thanky," replied Mrs. Mcllvaine, laboriously 
 counting the bills. 
 
 "Is it all right?" 
 
 "I guess so," she replied, dubiously. "I'll count it after I get 
 home." 
 
 She went up the street with the feeling that the bank was all 
 right, and she stepped in and told Mrs. Bingham that she had 
 no trouble in getting her money. 
 
 After she had gone Sanford sat down and wrote a telegram 
 which he sent to St. Paul. This telegram, according to the dupli- 
 cate at the station, read in this puzzling way: 
 
 E. O., Exchange Block, No. g6. All out of paper. Send five hundred 
 note-heads and envelopes to match. Business brisk. Press of cor- 
 respondence just now. Get them out quick. Wire. 
 
 Sanford. 
 
 Two or three others came in after a little money, but he put 
 them off easily. "Just been cashing some paper, and took all the 
 ready cash I can spare. Can't you wait till to-morrow? Link's 
 gone down to St. Paul to collect on some paper. Be back on the 
 five-o'clock. Nine o'clock, sure." 
 
 An old Norwegian woman came in to deposit ten dollars, and 
 he counted it in briskly, and put the amount down on her little 
 book for her. Barney Mace came in to deposit a hundred dollars, 
 the proceeds of a horse sale, and this helped him through the day. 
 Those who wanted small sums he paid. 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 221 
 
 "Glad this ain't a big demand. Rather close on cash to-day," 
 he said, smiling, as Lincoln's wife's sister came in. 
 
 She laughed. "I guess it won't bu'st yeh. If I thought it would, 
 I'd leave it in." 
 
 "Bu'sted!" he said, when Vance wanted him to cash a draft. 
 "Can't do it. Sorry, Van. Do it in the morning all right. Can 
 you wait?" 
 
 "Oh, I guess so. Haf to, won't 1?" 
 
 "Curious," said Sanford, in a confidential way. "I don't know 
 that I ever saw things get in just such shape. Paper enough — 
 but exchange, ye know, and readjustment of accounts." 
 
 "I don't know much about banking, myself," said Vance, good- 
 naturedly; "but I s'pose it's a good 'eal same as with a man. 
 Git short o' cash, first they know — 'ain't got a cent to spare." 
 
 "That's the idea exactly. Credit all right, plenty o' property, 
 but — " and he smiled and went at his books. The smile died out 
 of his eyes as Vance went out, and he pulled a little morocco 
 book from his pocket and began studying the beautiful columns of 
 figures with which it seemed to be filled. Those he compared with 
 the books with great care, thrusting the book out of sight when 
 any one entered. 
 
 He closed the bank as usual at five. Lincoln had not come — 
 couldn't come now till the nine-o'clock accommodation. For an 
 hour after the shades were drawn he sat there in the semi-dark- 
 ness, silently pondering on his situation. This attitude and deep 
 quiet were unusual to him. He heard the feet of friends and neigh- 
 bors passing the door as he sat there by the smouldering coal- 
 fire, in the growing darkness. There was something impressive 
 in his attitude. 
 
 He started up at last, and tried to see what the hour was by 
 turning the face of his w^atch to the dull glow from the cannon- 
 stove's open door. 
 
 "Supper-time," he said, and threw the whole matter off, as if he 
 had decided it or had put off the decision till another time. 
 
 As he went by the post-ofHce Vance said to Mcllvaine in a 
 smiling way, as if it were a good joke on Sanford: 
 
222 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Little short o' cash down at the bank." 
 "He's a good fellow," Mcllvaine said. 
 "So's his wife," added Vance, with a chuckle. 
 
 Ill 
 
 That night, after supper, Sanford sat in his snug little sitting- 
 room with a baby on each knee, looking as cheerful and happy 
 as any man in the village. The children crowed and shouted 
 as he "trotted them to Boston," or rode them on the toe of his 
 boot. They made a noisy, merry group. 
 
 Mrs. Sanford "did her own work," and her swift feet could 
 be heard moving to and fro out in the kitchen. It was pleasant 
 there, the woodwork, the furniture, the stove, the curtains — all 
 had that look of newness just growing into coziness. The coal- 
 stove was lighted and the curtains were drawn. 
 
 After the work in the kitchen was done, Mrs. Sanford came 
 in and sat awhile by the fire with the children, looking very wifely 
 in her dark dress and white apron, her round, smiling face glow- 
 ing with love and pride — the gloating look of a mother seeing 
 her children in the arms of her husband. 
 
 "How is Mrs. Peterson's baby, Jim?" she said, suddenly, her 
 face sobering. 
 
 "Pretty bad, I guess. La, la, la — deedle-dee ! The doctor seemed 
 to think it was a tight squeak if it lived. Guess it's done for — 
 cop 'e goes!" 
 
 She made a little leap at the youngest child, and clasped it con- 
 vulsively to her bosom. Her swift maternal imagination had made 
 another's loss very near and terrible. 
 
 "Oh, say, Nell,'' he broke out, on seeing her sober, "I had the 
 confoundedest time to-day with old lady Bingham " 
 
 "'Sh! Baby's gone to sleep." 
 
 After the children had been put to bed in the little alcove off 
 the sitting-room, Mrs. Sanford came back, to find Jim absorbed 
 over a little book of accounts. 
 
 "What are you studying, Jim?" 
 
 Some one knocked on the door before he had time to reply. 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 223 
 
 "Come in!" he said. 
 
 " 'Sh! Don't yell so," his wife whispered. 
 
 "Telegram, Jim," said a voice in the obscurity. 
 
 "Oh ! That you, Sam ? Come in." 
 
 Sam, a lathy fellow with a quid in his cheek, stepped in. "How 
 d' 'e do. Mis' Sanford?" 
 
 "Set down — se' down." 
 
 "Can't stop; 'most train-time." 
 
 Sanford tore the envelope open, read the telegram rapidly, the 
 smile fading out of his face. He read it again, word for word, 
 then sat looking at it. 
 
 "Any answer?" asked Sam. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "All right. Good-night." 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 After the door slammed, Sanford took the sheet from the en- 
 velope and reread it. At length he dropped into his chair. "That 
 settles it," he said, aloud. 
 
 "Settles what? What's the news?" His wife came up and looked 
 over his shoulder. 
 
 "Settles I've got to go on that nine-thirty train." 
 
 "Be back on the morning train?" 
 
 "Yes; I guess so — I mean, of course — I'll have to be — to open 
 the bank." 
 
 Mrs. Sanford looked at him for a few seconds in silence. There 
 was something in his look, and especially in his tone, that troubled 
 her. 
 
 "What do you mean? Jim, you don't intend to come back!" 
 She took his arm. "What's the matter? Now tell me! What are 
 you going away for?" 
 
 He knew he could not deceive his wife's ears and eyes just 
 then, so he remained silent. "We've got to leave, Nell," he ad- 
 mitted at last. 
 
 "Why? What for?" 
 
 "Because I'm bu'sted — ^broke — gone up the spout — and all the 
 
224 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 rest!" he said, desperately, with an attempt at fun. "Mrs. Bing- 
 ham and Mrs. Mcllvaine have bu'sted me — dead." 
 
 "Why — ^why — ^what has become of the money — all the money 
 the people have put in there?" 
 
 "Gone up with the rest." 
 
 "What 've you done with it? I don't " 
 
 "Well, I've invested it — and lost it." 
 
 "James Gordon Sanford!" she exclaimed, trying to realize it. 
 "Was that right? Ain't that a case of — of " 
 
 "Shouldn't wonder. A case of embezzlement such as you read 
 of in the newspapers." His tone was easy, but he avoided the 
 look in his wife's beautiful gray eyes. 
 
 "But it's — stealing — ain't it?" She stared at him, bewildered 
 by his reckless lightness of mood. 
 
 "It is now, because I've lost. If I'd 'a' won it, it 'ud 'a' been 
 financial shrewdness!" 
 
 She asked her next question after a pause, in a low voice, 
 and through teeth almost set. "Did you go into this bank to — 
 steal this money? Tell me that!" 
 
 "No; I didn't, Nell. I ain't quite up to that." 
 
 His answer softened her a little, and she sat looking at him 
 steadily as he went on. The tears began to roll slowly down her 
 cheeks. Her hands were clenched. 
 
 "The fact is, the idea came into my head last fall when I went 
 up to Superior. My partner wanted me to go in with him on some 
 land, and I did. We speculated on the growth of the town to- 
 ward the south. We made a strike ; then he wanted me to go in on a 
 copper-mine. Of course I expected " 
 
 As he went on with the usual excuses her mind made all the 
 allowances possible for him. He had always been boyish, im- 
 pulsive, and lacking in judgment and strength of character. She 
 was humiliated and frightened, but she loved and sympathized 
 with him. 
 
 Her silence alarmed him, and he made excuses for himself. He 
 was speculating for her sake more than for his own, and so on. 
 
 "Choc — choo!" whistled the far-off train through the still air. 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 225 
 
 He sprang up and reached for his coat. 
 
 She seized his arm again. "Where are you going?" she sternly 
 asked. 
 
 "To take that train." 
 
 "When are you coming back?" 
 
 "I don't know." But his tone said, "Never." 
 
 She felt it. Her face grew bitter. "Going to leave me and — 
 the babies?" 
 
 "I'll send for you soon. Come, good-byl" He tried to put his 
 arm about her. She stepped back. 
 
 "Jim, if you leave me to-night" ("Choo — choo!" whistled the 
 engine), "you leave me forever," There was a terrible resolu- 
 tion in her tone. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean that I'm going to stay here. If you go — I'll never 
 be your wife — again — never!" She glanced at the sleeping chil- 
 dren, and her chin trembled. 
 
 "I can't face those fellows — they'll kill me," he said, in a sul- 
 len tone. 
 
 "No, they won't. They'll respect you, if you stay and tell 'em 
 exactly how — it — all — is. You've disgraced me and my children, 
 that's what you've done ! If you don't stay " 
 
 The clear jangle of the engine-bell sounded through the night 
 as with the whiz of escaping steam and scrape and jar of gripping 
 brakes and howl of wheels the train came to a stop at the station. 
 Sanford dropped his coat and sat down again. 
 
 "I'll have to stay now." His tone was dry and lifeless. It had 
 a reproach in it that cut the wife deep — deep as the fountain of 
 tears; and she went across the room and knelt at the bedside, 
 burying her face in the clothes on the feet of her children, and 
 sobbed silently. 
 
 The man sat with bent head, looking into the glowing coal, 
 whistling through his teeth, a look of sullen resignation and en- 
 durance on his face that had never been there before. His very 
 attitude was alien and ominous. 
 
226 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 Neither spoke for a long time. At last he rose and began taking 
 off his coat and vest. 
 
 "Well, I suppose there's nothing to do but go to bed." 
 
 She did not stir — she might have been asleep so far as any 
 sound or motion was concerned. He went off to the bed in the 
 little parlor, and she still knelt there, her heart lull of anger, 
 bitterness, sorrow. 
 
 The sunny uneventfulness of her past life made this great 
 storm the more terrifying. Her trust in her husband had been 
 absolute. A farmer's daughter, the bank clerk had seemed to her 
 the equal of any gentleman in the world — her world; and when 
 she knew his delicacy, his unfailing kindness, and his abounding 
 good nature, she had accepted him as the father of her children, 
 and this was the first revelation to her of his inherent moral weak- 
 ness. 
 
 Her mind went over the whole ground again and again, in a 
 sort of blinding rush. She was convinced of his lack of honor 
 more by his tone, his inflections, than by his words. His lack of 
 deep regret, his readiness to leave her to bear the whole shock 
 of the discovery — these were in his flippant tones; and every time 
 she thought of them the hot blood surged over her. At such 
 moments she hated him, and her white teeth clenched. 
 
 To these moods succeeded others, when she remembered his 
 smile, the dimple in his chin, his tender care for the sick, his 
 buoyancy, his songs to the children — How could he sit there, with 
 the children on his knees, and plan to run away, leaving them 
 disgraced ? 
 
 She went to bed at last with the babies, and with their soft, 
 warm little bodies touching her side fell asleep, pondering, suffer- 
 ing as only a mother and wife can suffer when distrust and doubt 
 of her husband supplant confidence and adoration. 
 
 IV 
 
 The children awakened her by their delighted cooing and kiss- 
 ing. It was a great event, this waking to find mamma in their 
 bed. It was hardly light, of a dull gray morning; and with the 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 227 
 
 children tumbling about over her, feeling the pressure of the 
 warm little hands and soft lips, she went over the whole situa- 
 tion again, and at last settled upon her action. 
 
 She rose, shook down the coal in the stove in the sitting-room, 
 and started a fire in the kitchen; then she dressed the children by 
 the coal-burner. The elder of them, as soon as dressed, ran in to 
 wake "poppa" while the mother went about breakfast-getting. 
 
 Sanford came out of his bedroom unwontedly gloomy, greet- 
 ing the children in a subdued manner. He shivered as he sat by 
 the fire, and stirred the stove as if he thought the room was cold. 
 His face was pale and moist. 
 
 "Breakfast is ready, James," called Mrs. Sanford, in a tone 
 which she meant to be habitual, but which had a cadence of sad- 
 ness in it. 
 
 Someway, he found it hard to look at her as he came out. She 
 busied herself with placing the children at the table, in order to 
 conceal her own emotion. 
 
 "I don't believe I'll eat any meat this morning, Nellie. I ain't 
 very well." 
 
 She glanced at him quickly, keenly. "What's the matter?" 
 
 "I d'know. My stomach is kind of upset by this failure o' 
 mine. I'm in great shape to go down to the bank this morning — 
 and face them fellows " 
 
 "It's got to be done." 
 
 "I know it; but that don't help me any." He tried to smile. 
 
 She mused, while the baby hammered on his tin plate. 
 
 "You've got to go down. If you don't — I will," said she, 
 resolutely. "And you must say that that money will be paid 
 back — every cent." 
 
 "But that's more'n I can do " 
 
 "It must be done." 
 
 "But under the law " 
 
 "There's nothing can make this thing right except paying every 
 cent we owe. I ain't a-goin' to have it said that my children — that 
 I'm livin' on somebody else. If you don't pay these debts, / will. 
 I've thought it all out. If you don't stay and face it, and pay 
 these men. I won't own you as my husband. I loved and trusted 
 
228 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 you, Jim — I thought you was honorable — it's been a terrible 
 blow — but I've decided it all in my mind." 
 
 She conquered her little weakness, and went on to the end 
 firmly. Her face looked pale. There was a square look about the 
 mouth and chin. The iron resolution and Puritanic strength of 
 her father, old John Foreman, had come to the surface. Her 
 look and tone mastered the man, for he loved her deeply. 
 
 She had set him a hard task, and when he rose and went down 
 the street he walked with bent head, quite unlike his usual self. 
 
 There were not many men on the street. It seemed earlier than 
 it was, for it was a raw, cold morning, promising snow. The sun 
 was completely masked in a seamless dust-gray cloud. He met 
 Vance with a brown parcel (beefsteak for breakfast) under his 
 arm. 
 
 "Hello, Jim! How are ye, so early in the morning?" 
 
 "Blessed near used up." 
 
 "That so? What's the matter?" 
 
 "I d'know," said Jim, listlessly. "Bilious, I guess. Headache 
 — stomach bad." 
 
 "Oh! Well, now, you try them pills I was tellin' you of." 
 
 Arrived at the bank, he let himself in, and locked the door 
 behind him< He stood in the middle of the floor a few minutes, 
 then went behind the railing and sat down. He didn't build a 
 fire, though it was cold and damp, and he shivered as he sat lean- 
 ing, on the desk. At length he drew a large sheet of paper toward 
 him and wrote something on it in a heavy hand. 
 
 He was writing on this when Lincoln entered at the back, 
 whistling boyishly. "Hello, Jim! Ain't you up early? No fire, 
 eh?" He rattled at the stove. 
 
 Sanford said nothing, but finished his writing. Then he said, 
 quietly, "You needn't build a fire on my account, Link." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Well, I'm used up." 
 
 "What's the matter?" 
 
 "I'm sick, and the business has gone to the devil." He looked 
 out of the window. 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 229 
 
 Link dropped the poker, and came around behind the counter, 
 and stared at Sanford with fallen mouth. 
 
 "Wha'd you say?" 
 
 "I said the business had gone to the devil. We're broke — 
 bu'sted — petered — gone up the spout." He took a sort of morbid 
 pleasure in saying these things. 
 
 "What's bu'sted us? Have " 
 
 "I've been speculatin' in copper. My partner's bu'sted me." 
 
 Link came closer. His mouth stiffened and an ominous look 
 came into his eyes. "You don't mean to say you've lost my money, 
 and mother's, and Uncle Andrew's, and all the rest?" 
 
 Sanford was getting irritated. " it! What's the use? I tell 
 
 you, yes\ It's all gone — every cent of it." 
 
 Link caught him by the shoulder as he sat at the desk. San- 
 ford's tone enraged him. "You thief! But you'll pay me back, or 
 I'll " 
 
 "Oh, go ahead! Pound a sick man, if it '11 do you any good," 
 said Sanford, with a peculiar recklessness of lifeless misery. "Pay 
 y'rself out of the safe. Here's the combination." 
 
 Lincoln released him, and began turning the knob of the door. 
 At last it swung open, and he searched the money-drawers. Less 
 than forty dollars, all told. His voice was full of helpless rage as 
 he turned at last and walked up close to Sanford's bowed head. 
 
 "I'd like to pound the life out o' you!" 
 
 "You're at liberty to do so, if it '11 be any satisfaction." 
 
 This desperate courage awed the younger man. He gazed at 
 Sanford in amazement. 
 
 "If you'll cool down and wait a little. Link, I'll tell you all 
 about it. I'm sick as a horse. I guess I'll go home. You can put 
 this up in the window, and go home, too, if you want to." 
 
 Lincoln saw that Sanford was sick. He was shivering, and 
 drops of sweat were on his white forehead. Lincoln stood aside 
 silently, and let him go out. 
 
 "Better lock up. Link. You can't do anything by staying here." 
 
 Lincoln took refuge in a boyish phrase that would have made 
 any one but a sick man laugh: "Well, this is a of a note!" 
 
230 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 He took up the paper. It read : 
 
 BANK CLOSED 
 
 TO MY CREDITORS AND DEPOSITORS 
 
 Through a combination of events I find myself obliged to tem- 
 porarily suspend payment. I ask the depositors to be patient, and 
 their claims will be met. I think I can pay twenty-five cents on the 
 dollar, if given a little time. I shall not run away. I shall stay right 
 here till all matters are honorably settled. 
 
 James G. Sanford. 
 
 Lincoln hastily pinned this paper to the window-sash so that 
 it could be seen from without, then pulled down the blinds and 
 locked the door. His fun-loving nature rose superior to his rage 
 for the moment. "There'll be the devil to pay in this burg before 
 two hours." 
 
 He slipped out the back way, taking the keys with him. "I'll 
 go and tell uncle, and then we'll see if Jim can't turn in the house 
 on our account," he thought, as he harnessed a team to drive out 
 to McPhail's. 
 
 The first man to try the door was an old Norwegian in a 
 spotted Mackinac jacket and a fur cap, with the inevitable little 
 red tippet about his neck. He turned the knob, knocked, and at 
 last saw the writing, which he could not read, and went away 
 to tell Johnson that the bank was closed. Johnson thought noth- 
 ing special of that ; it was early, and they weren't very particular 
 to open on time, anyway. 
 
 Then the barber across the street tried to get in to have a bill 
 changed. Trying to peer in the window, he saw the notice, which 
 he read with a grin. 
 
 "One o' Link's jobs," he explained to the fellows in the shop. 
 "He's too darned lazy to open on time, so he puts up notice that 
 the bank is bu'sted." 
 
 "Let's go and see." 
 
 "Don't do it ! He's watchin' to see us all rush across and look. 
 Just keep quiet, and see the solid citizens rear around." 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 231 
 
 Old Orrin Mcllvaine came out of the post-ofEce and tried the 
 door next, then stood for a long time reading the notice, and at 
 last walked thoughtfully away. Soon he returned, to the merri- 
 ment of the fellows in the barber shop, with two or three solid 
 citizens who had been smoking an after-breakfast cigar and plan- 
 ning a deer-hunt. They stood before the window in a row and 
 read the notice. Mcllvaine gesticulated with his cigar. 
 
 "Gentlemen, there's a pig loose here." 
 
 "One o' Link's jokes, I reckon." 
 
 "But that's Sanford's writin'. An' here it is nine o'clock, and 
 no one round. I don't like the looks of it, myself." 
 
 The crowd thickened; the fellows came out of the blacksmith 
 shop, while the jokers in the barbershop smote their knees and 
 yelled with merriment. 
 
 "What's up ?" queried Vance, coming up and repeating the uni- 
 versal question. 
 
 Mcllvaine pointed at the poster with his cigar. 
 
 Vance read the notice, while the crowd waited silently. 
 
 "What ye think of it?" asked some one, impatiently. 
 
 Vance smoked a moment. "Can't say. Where's Jim?" 
 
 "That's it! Where is he?" 
 
 "Best way to find out is to send a boy up to the house." He 
 called a boy and sent him scurrying up ^e street. 
 
 The crowd now grew sober and discussed possibilities. 
 
 "If that's true, it's the worst crack on the head / ever had," 
 said Mcllvaine. "Seventen hundred dollars is my pile in there." 
 He took a seat on the window-sill. 
 
 "Well, I'm tickled to death to think I got my little stake out 
 before anything happened." 
 
 "When you think of it — ^what security did he ever give?" Mc- 
 llvaine continued. 
 
 "Not a cent — not a red cent." 
 
 "No, sir; we simply banked on him. Now, he's a good fellow, 
 an' this may be a joke o' Link's; but the fact is, it miffht 'a' hap- 
 pened. Well, sonny?" he said to the boy. who came running up. 
 
232 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Link ain't to home, an' Mrs. Sanford she says Jim's sick, 
 an' can't come down." 
 
 There was a silence. "Anybody see him this morning?" asked 
 Wilson. 
 
 "Yes ; I saw him," said Vance. "Looked bad, too." 
 
 The crowd changed; people came and went, some to get news, 
 some to carry it away. In a short time the whole town knew the 
 bank had "bu'sted all to smash." Farmers drove along, and 
 stopped to find out what it all meant. The more they talked, the 
 more excited they grew; and "Scoundrel," and "I always had my 
 doubts of that feller," were phrases growing more frequent. 
 
 The list of the victims grew until it was evident that nearly 
 all of the savings of a dozen or more depositors were swallowed 
 up, and the sum reached was nearly twenty thousand dollars. 
 
 "What did he do with it?" was the question. He never gambled 
 or drank. He lived frugally. There was no apparent cause for 
 this failure of a trusted institution. 
 
 It was beginning to snow in great, damp, driving flakes, which 
 melted as they fell, giving to the street a strangeness and gloom 
 that were impressive. The men left the sidewalk at last, and 
 gathered in the saloons and stores to continue the discussion. 
 
 The crowd at the railroad saloon was very decided in its belief. 
 Sanford had pocketed the money and skipped. That yarn about 
 his being at home sick was a blind. Some went so far as to say 
 that it was almighty curious where Link was, hinting darkly 
 that the bank ought to be broken into, and so on. 
 
 Upon this company burst Barney and Sam Mace from "Hogan's 
 Corners." They were excited by the news and already inflamed 
 with drink. 
 
 "Say!" yelled Barney, "any o' you fellers know anything about 
 Jim Sanford?" 
 
 "No. Why? Got any money there?" 
 
 "Yes ; and I'm goin' to git it out, if I haf to smash the door in." 
 
 "That's the talk!" shouted some of the loafers. They sprang up 
 and surrounded Barney. There was something in his voice that 
 aroused all their latent ferocity. "I'm goin' to get into that bank 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 233 
 
 an' see how things look, an' then I'm goin' to find Sanford an' 
 get my money, or pound out of 'im, one o' the six." 
 
 "Go find him first. He's up home, sick — so's his wife." 
 
 "I'll see whether he's sick 'r not. I'll drag 'im out by the scruff 
 o' the neck ! Come on !" He ended with a sudden resolution, lead- 
 ing the way out into the street, where the falling snow was soften- 
 ing the dirt into a sticky mud. 
 
 A rabble of a dozen or two of men and boys followed Mace 
 up the street. He led the way with great strides, shouting his 
 threats. As they passed along, women thrust their heads out at 
 the windows, asking, "What's the matter?" And some one 
 answered each time, in a voice of unconcealed delight: 
 
 "Sanford's stole all the money in the bank, and they're goin' 
 up to lick 'im. Come on if ye want to see the fun." 
 
 In a few moments the street looked as if an alarm of fire had 
 been sounded. Half the town seemed to be out, and the other 
 half coming — ^women in shawls, like squaws; children capering 
 and laughing ; young men grinning at the girls who came out and 
 stood at the gates. 
 
 Some of the citizens tried to stop it. Vance found the constable 
 looking on, and ordered him to do his duty and stop that crowd. 
 
 "I can't do anything," he said, helplessly. "They ain't done 
 nawthin' yet, an' I don't know " 
 
 "Oh, git out! They're goin' up there to whale Jim, an' you 
 know it. If you don't stop 'em, I'll telephone f'r the sheriff, and 
 have you arrested with 'em." 
 
 Under this pressure, the constable ran along after the crowd, 
 in an attempt to stop it. He reached them as they stood about 
 the little porch of the house, packed closely around Barney and 
 Sam, who said nothing, but followed Barney like his shadow. 
 If the sun had been shining, it might not have happened as it did ; 
 but there was a semi-obscurity, a weird half-light shed by the thick 
 sky and falling snow, which somehow encouraged the enraged 
 ruffians, who pounded on the door just as the pleading voice of 
 the constable was heard. 
 
 "Hold on, gentlemen! This is ag'inst the law " 
 
234 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Law to !" said some one. "This is a case f'r something 
 
 besides law.'' 
 
 "Open up there!" roared the raucous voice of Barney Mace, 
 as he pounded at the door fiercely. 
 
 The door opened, and the wife appeared, one child in her arms, 
 the other at her side. 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 "Where's that banker? Tell the thief to come out here! We 
 want to talk with him." 
 
 The woman did not quail, but her face seemed a ghastly yel- 
 low, seen through the falling snow. 
 
 "He can't come. He's sick." 
 
 "Sick! We'll sick 'im! Tell 'im t' come out, or we'll snake 'im 
 out by the heels." The crowd laughed. The worst elements of the 
 saloons surrounded the two half-savage men. It was amusing to 
 them to see the woman face them all in that way. 
 
 "Where's McPhail?" Vance inquired, anxiously. "Somebody 
 find McPhail." 
 
 "Stand out o' the way!" snarled Barney, as he pushed the 
 struggling woman aside. 
 
 The wife raised her voice to that wild, animal-like pitch a woman 
 uses when desperate. 
 
 "I sha'n't do it, I tell you! HelpV 
 
 "Keep out o' my way, or I'll wring y'r neck f'r yeh." 
 
 She struggled with him, but he pushed her aside and entered 
 the room. 
 
 "What's goin' on here?" called the ringing voice of Andrew 
 McPhail, who had just driven up with Link. 
 
 Several of the crowd looked over their shoulders at McPhail. 
 
 "Hello, Mac! Just in time. Oh, nawthin'. Barney's callin' on 
 the banker, that's all." 
 
 Over the heads of the crowd, packed struggling about the door, 
 came the woman's scream again. McPhail dashed around the 
 crowd, running two or three of them down, and entered the back 
 door. Vance, Mcllvaine, and Lincoln followed him. 
 
 "Cowards!" the wife said, as the ruflSans approached the bed. 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 235 
 
 They swept her aside, but paused an instant before the glance 
 of the sick man's eye. He lay there, desperately, deathly sick. The 
 blood throbbed in his whirling brain, his eyes were bloodshot and 
 blinded, his strength was gone. He could hardly speak. He partly 
 rose and stretched out his hand, and then fell back. 
 
 "Kill me — if you want to — but let her — alone. She's " 
 
 The children were crying. The wind whistled drearily across 
 the room, carrying the evanescent flakes of soft snow over the heads 
 of the pausing, listening crowd in the doorway. Quick steps were 
 heard. 
 
 "Hold on there!" cried McPhail, as he burst into the room. He 
 seemed an angel of God to the wife and mother. 
 
 He spread his great arms in a gesture which suggested irresist- 
 ible strength and resolution. "Clear out! Out with ye!" 
 
 No man had ever seen him look like that before. He awed them 
 with the look in his eyes. His long service as sheriff gave him 
 authority. He hustled them, cuffed them out of the door like 
 school-boys. Barney backed out, cursing. He knew McPhail too 
 well to refuse to obey. 
 
 McPhail pushed Barney out, shut the door behind him, and 
 stood on the steps, looking at the crowd. 
 
 "Well, you're a great lot! You fellers, would ye jump on a 
 sick man? What ye think ye're all doin', anyhow?" 
 
 The crowd laughed. "Hey, Mac; give us a speech!" 
 
 "You ought to be booted, the whole lot o' yeh!" he replied. 
 
 "That houn' in there's run the bank into the ground, with 
 every cent o' money we'd put in," said Barney. "I s'pose ye know 
 that." 
 
 "Well, s'pose he has — ^what's the use o' jumpin' on 'im?" 
 
 "Git it out of his hide." 
 
 "I've heerd that talk before. How much you got in?" 
 
 "Two hundred dollars." 
 
 "Well, I've got two thousand." The crowd saw the point. 
 
 "I guess if anybody was goin' t' take it out of his hide, I'd be 
 the man; but I want the feller to live and have a chance to pay 
 it back. Killin' 'im is a dead loss." 
 
236 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "That's so!" shouted somebody. "Mac ain't no fool, if he does 
 chaw hay," said another, and the crowd laughed. They were los- 
 ing that frenzy, largely imitative and involuntary, which actu- 
 ates a mob. There was something counteracting in the ex-sheriff's 
 cool, humorous tone. 
 
 "Give us the rest of it, Mac!" 
 
 "The rest of it is — clear out o' here, 'r I'll boot every mother's 
 son of yeh!" 
 
 "Can't do it!" 
 
 "Come down an' try it !" 
 
 Mcllvaine opened the door and looked out. "Mac, Mrs. San- 
 ford wants to say something — if it's safe." 
 
 "Safe as eatin' dinner." 
 
 Mrs. Sanford came out, looking pale and almost like a child 
 as she stood beside her defender's towering bulk. But her face was 
 resolute. 
 
 "That money will be paid back," she said, "dollar for dollar, 
 if you'll just give us a chance. As soon as Jim gets well enough 
 «very cent will be paid, if 1 live." 
 
 The crowd received this little speech in silence. One or two said, 
 in low voices: "That's business. She'll do it, too, if any one can." 
 
 Barney pushed his way through the crowd with contemptuous 
 curses. "The she will !" he said. 
 
 "We'll see 't you have a chance," McPhail and Mcllvaine as- 
 sured Mrs. Sanford. 
 
 She went in and closed the door. 
 
 "Now git\" said Andrew, coming down the steps. The crowd 
 scattered with laughing taunts. He turned, and entered the house. 
 The rest drifted off down the street through the soft flurries of 
 snow, and in a few moments the street assumed its usual appear- 
 ance. 
 
 The failure of the bank and the raid on the banker had passed 
 into history, 
 
 V 
 
 In the light of the days of calm afterthought which followed, 
 this attempt upon the peace of the Sanford home grew more 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 237 
 
 monstrous, and helped largely to mitigate the feeling against the 
 banker. Besides, he had not run away; that was a strong point in 
 his favor. 
 
 "Don't that show," argued Vance, in the post-office — "don't that 
 show he didn't intend to steal? An' don't it show he's goin' to 
 try to make things square?" 
 
 "I guess we might as well think that as anything." 
 
 "I claim the boys has a right t' take sumpthin' out o' his hide," 
 Bent Wilson stubbornly insisted. 
 
 "Ain't enough t' go 'round," laughed McPhail. "Besides, I 
 can't have it. Link an' I own the biggest share in 'im, an' we can't 
 have him hurt." 
 
 Mcllvaine and Vance grinned. "That's a fact, Mac. We four 
 fellers are the main losers. He's ours, an' we can't have him 
 foundered 'r crippled 'r cut up in any way. Ain't that woman of 
 his gritty?" 
 
 "Gritty ain't no name for her. She's goin' into business." 
 
 "So I hear. They say Jim was crawling around a little yester- 
 day. I didn't see 'im." 
 
 "I did. He looks pretty streak-id — now you bet." 
 
 "What'd he say for himself?" 
 
 "Oh, said give 'im time — ^he'd fix it all up." 
 
 "How much time ?" 
 
 "Time enough. Hain't been able to look at a book since. Say, 
 ain't it a little curious he was so sick just then — sick as a p'isened 
 dog?" 
 
 The two men looked at each other in a manner most comically 
 significant. The thought of poison was in the mind of each. 
 
 It was under these trying circumstances that Sanford began 
 to crawl about, a week or ten days after his sickness. It was really 
 the most terrible punishment for him. Before, everybody used to 
 sing out, "Hello, Jim!" or "Mornin', banker," or some other 
 jovial, heart-warming salutation. Now, as he went down the 
 street, the groups of men smoking on the sunny side of the stores 
 ignored him, or looked at him with scornful eyes. 
 
 Nobody said, "Hello, Jim!" — not even McPhail or Vance. 
 They nodded merely, and went on with their smoking. The chil- 
 
238 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 dren followed him and stared at him without compassion. They 
 had heard him called a scoundrel and a thief too often at home to 
 feel any pity for his pale face. 
 
 After his first trip down the street, bright with the December 
 sunshine, he came home in a bitter, weak mood, smarting, aching 
 with a poignant self-pity over the treatment he had received from 
 his old cronies. 
 
 "It's all your fault," he burst out to his wife. "If you'd only 
 let me go away and look up another place I wouldn't have to 
 put up with all these sneers and insults." 
 
 "What sneers and insults?" she asked, coming over to him. 
 
 "Why, nobody '11 speak to me." 
 
 "Won't Mr. McPhail and Mr. Mcllvaine?" 
 
 "Yes; but not as they used to." 
 
 "You can't blame 'em, Jim. You must go to work and win back 
 their confidence." 
 
 "I can't do that. Let's go away, Nell, and try again." 
 
 Her mouth closed firmly. A hard look came into her eyes. "You 
 can go if you want to, Jim. I'm goin' to stay right here till we 
 can leave honorably. We can't run away from this. It would fol- 
 low us anywhere we went; and it would get worse the farther 
 we went." 
 
 He knew the unyielding quality of his wife's resolution, and 
 from that moment he submitted to his fate. He loved his wife 
 and children with a passionate love that made life with them, 
 among the citizens he had robbed, better than life anywhere else 
 on earth; he had no power to leave them. 
 
 As soon as possible he went over his books and found out that 
 he owed, above all notes coming in, about eleven thousand dollars. 
 This was a large sum to look forward to paying by anything he 
 could do in the Siding, now that his credit was gone. Nobody 
 would take him as a clerk, and there was nothing else to be done 
 except manual labor, and he was not strong enough for that. 
 
 His wife, however, had a plan. She sent East to friends for a 
 little money at once, and with a few hundred dollars opened a little 
 store in time for the holiday trade — ^wall-paper, notions, light 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 239 
 
 dry-goods, toys, and millinery. She did her own housework and 
 attended to her shop in a grim, uncomplaining fashion that made 
 Sanford feel like a criminal in her presence. He couldn't propose 
 to help her in the store, for he knew the people would refuse to 
 trade with him, so he attended to the children and did little 
 things about the house for the first few months of the winter. 
 
 His life for a time was abjectly pitiful. He didn't know what 
 to do. He had lost his footing, and, worst of all, he felt that his 
 wife no longer respected him. She loved and pitied him, but she 
 no longer looked up to him. She went about her work and down to 
 her store with a silent, resolute, uncommunicative air, utterly un- 
 like her former sunny, domestic self, so that even she seemed alien 
 like the rest. If he had been ill, Vance and McPhail would have 
 attended him; as it was, they could not help him. 
 
 She already had the sympathy of the entire town, and Mcllvaine 
 had said: "If you need more money, you can have it, Mrs. San- 
 ford. Call on us at any time." 
 
 "Thank you. I don't think I'll need it. All I ask is your trade," 
 she replied. "I don't ask anybody to pay more'n a thing's worth, 
 either. I'm goin' to sell goods on business principles, and I expect 
 folks to buy of me because I'm selling reliable goods as cheap as 
 anybody else." 
 
 Her business was successful from the start, but she did not 
 allow herself to get too confident. 
 
 "This is a kind of charity trade. It won't last on that basis. 
 Folks ain't goin' to buy of me because I'm poor — not very long," 
 she said to Vance, who went In to congratulate her on her boom- 
 ing trade during Christmas and New Year. 
 
 Vance called so often, advising or congratulating her, that the 
 boys joked him. "Say, looky here! You're goin' to get into a peck 
 o' trouble with your wife yet. You spend about half y'r time in 
 the new store." 
 
 Vance looked serene as he replied, "I'd stay longer and go 
 oftener if I could." 
 
 "Well, if you ain't cheekier 'n ol' cheek! I should think you'd 
 be ashamed to say it." 
 
240 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 " 'Shamed of it? I'm proud of it! As I tell my wife, if I'd 'a' 
 met Mis' Sanford when we was both young, they wouldn't 'a' 
 be'n no such present arrangement." 
 
 The new life made its changes in Mrs. Sanford. She grew 
 thinner and graver, but as she went on, and trade steadily in- 
 creased, a feeling of pride, a sort of exultation, came into her 
 soul and shone from her steady eyes. It was glorious to feel that 
 she was holding her own with men in the world, winning their 
 respect, which is better than their flattery. She arose each day at 
 five o'clock with a distinct pleasure, for her physical health was 
 excellent, never better. 
 
 She began to dream. She could pay off five hundred dollars a 
 year of the interest — ^perhaps she could pay some of the principal, 
 if all went well. Perhaps in a year or two she could take a larger 
 store, and, if Jim got something to do, in ten years they could 
 pay it all off — every cent ! She talked with business men, and read ■ 
 and studied, and felt each day a firmer hold on affairs. 
 
 Sanford got the agency of an insurance company or two, and 
 earned a few dollars during the spring. In June things brightened 
 up a little. The money for a note of a thousand dollars fell due — 
 a note he had considered virtually worthless, but the debtor, hav- 
 ing had a "streak o' luck," sent seven hundred and fifty dollars. 
 Sanford at once called a meeting of his creditors, and paid them, 
 pro rata, a thousand dollars. The meeting took place in his wife's 
 store, and in making the speech Sanford said : 
 
 "I tell you, gentlemen, if you'll only give us a chance, we'll clear 
 this thing all up — that is, the principal. We can't " 
 
 "Yes, we can, James. We can pay it all, principal and interest. 
 We owe the interest just as much as the rest." It was evident 
 that there was to be no letting down while she lived. 
 
 The effect of this payment was marked. The general feeling 
 was much more kindly than before. Most of the fellows dropped 
 back into the habit of calling him Jim; but, after all, it was not 
 like the greeting of old, when he was "banker." Still the gain in 
 confidence found a reflex in him. His shoulders, which had begun 
 \o droop a little, lifted, and his eyes brightened. 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 241 
 
 "We'll win yet," he began to say. 
 
 "She's a-holdin' of 'im right to time," Mrs. Bingham said. 
 
 It was shortly after this that he got the agency for a new cash- 
 delivery system, and went on the road with it, travelling in north- 
 ern Wisconsin and Minnesota. He came back after a three weeks' 
 trip, quite jubilant. "I've made a hundred dollars, Nell. I'm all 
 right if this holds out, and I guess it will." 
 
 In the following November, just a year after the failure, they 
 celebrated the day, at her suggestion, by paying interest on the 
 unpaid sums they owed. 
 
 "I could pay a little more on the principal," she explained, "but 
 I guess it '11 be better to use it for my stock. I can pay better 
 dividends next year." 
 
 "Take y'r time, Mrs. Sanford," Vance said. 
 
 Of course she could not escape criticism. There were the usual 
 number of women who noticed that she kept her "young uns" 
 in the latest style, when as a matter of fact she sat up nights to 
 make their little things. They also noticed that she retained her 
 house and her furniture. 
 
 "If I was in her place, seems to me, I'd turn in some o' my fine 
 furniture towards my debts," Mrs. Sam Gilbert said, spitefully. 
 
 She did not even escape calumny. Mrs. Sam Gilbert darkly 
 hinted at certain "goin's on durin' his bein' away. Lit up till after 
 midnight some nights. I c'n see her winder from mine." 
 
 Rose McPhail, one of Mrs. Sanford's most devoted friends, 
 asked, quietly, "Do you sit up all night t' see?" 
 
 "S'posin' I do!" she snapped. "I can't sleep with such things 
 goin' on." 
 
 "If it '11 do you any good, Jane, I'll say that she's settin' up 
 there sewin' for the children. If you'd keep your nose out o' other 
 folks' affairs, and attend better to your own, your house wouldn't 
 look like a pig-pen, an' your children like A-rabs." 
 
 But in spite of a few annoyances of this character Mrs. San- 
 ford found her new life wholesomer and broader than her old 
 life, and the pain of her loss grew less poignant. 
 
242 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 VI 
 
 One day in spring, in the lazy, odorous hush of the afternoon, 
 the usual number of loafers were standing on the platform, wait- 
 ing for the train. The sun was going down the slope toward the 
 hills, through a warm April haze. 
 
 "Hello!" exclaimed the man who always sees things first. 
 "Here comes Mrs. Sanford and the ducklings." 
 
 Everybody looked. 
 
 "Ain't goin' off, is she?" 
 
 "Nope; guess not. Meet somebody, prob'ly Sanford." 
 
 "Well, somethin's up. She don't often get out o' that store." 
 
 "Le's see; he's been gone most o' the winter, hain't he?" 
 
 "Yes; went away about New-Year's." 
 
 Mrs. Sanford came past, leading a child by each hand, nodding 
 and smiling to friends — for all seemed friends. She looked very 
 resolute and business-like in her plain, dark dress, with a dull 
 flame of color at the throat, while the broad hat she wore gave 
 her face a touch of piquancy very charming. Evidently she was 
 in excellent spirits, and laughed and chatted in quite a care-free 
 way. 
 
 She was now an institution at the Siding. Her store had grown 
 in proportions yearly, until it was as large and commodious as 
 any in the town. The drummers for dry-goods all called there, 
 and the fact that she did not sell any groceries at all did not deter 
 the drummers for grocery houses from calling to see each time 
 if she hadn't decided to put in a stock of groceries. 
 
 These keen-eyed young fellows had spread her fame all up and 
 down the road. She had captured them, not by beauty, but by 
 her pluck, caridor, honesty, and by a certain fearless but reserved 
 camaraderie. She was not afraid of them, or of anybody else, 
 now. 
 
 The train whistled, and everybody turned to watch it as it came 
 pushing around the bluff like a huge hound on a trail, its nose 
 close to the ground. Among the first to alight was Sanford, in 
 a shining new silk hat and a new suit of clothes. He was smiling 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 243 
 
 gaily as he fought his way through the crowd to his wife's side. 
 "Hello!" he shouted. "I thought I'd see you all here." 
 
 "W'y, Jim, ain't you cuttin' a swell?" 
 
 "A swell! Well, who's got a better right? A man wants to 
 look as well as he can when he comes home to such a family." 
 
 "Hello, Jim! That plug '11 never do." 
 
 "Hello, Vance! Yes; but it's got to do. Say, you tell all the 
 fellers that's got anything ag'inst me to come around to-morrow 
 night to the store. I want to make some kind of a settlement." 
 
 "All right, Jim. Goin' to pay a new dividend ?" 
 
 "That's what I am," he beamed, as he walked off with his wife, 
 who was studying him sharply. 
 
 "Jim, what ails you?" 
 
 "Nothin"; I'm all right." 
 
 "But this new suit? And the hat? And the necktie?" 
 
 He laughed merrily — so merrily, in fact, that his wife looked at 
 him the more anxiously. He appeared to be in a queer state of 
 intoxication — a state that made him happy without impairing his 
 faculties, however. He turned suddenly and put his lips down to- 
 ward her ear. "Well, Nell, I can't hold in any longer. We've 
 struck it 1" 
 
 "Struck what?" 
 
 "Well, you see that derned fool partner o' mine got me to go 
 into a lot o' land in the copper country. That's where all the 
 trouble came. He got awfully let down. Well, he's had some sur- 
 veyors to go up there lately and look it over, and the next thing we 
 knew the Superior Mining Company came along an' wanted to 
 buy it. Of course we didn't want to sell just then." 
 
 They had reached the store door, and he paused. 
 
 "We'll go right home to supper," she said. "The girls will look 
 out for things till I get back." 
 
 They walked on together, the children laughing and playing 
 ahead. 
 
 "Well, upshot of it is, I sold out my share to Osgood for 
 twenty thousand dollars.' 
 
 She stopped, and stared jt him. "Jim — Gordon Sanford!" 
 
244 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 "Fact ! I can prove it." He patted his breast pocket mysteriously. 
 "Ten thousand right there." 
 
 "Gracious sakes alive! How dare you carry so much money?" 
 
 "I'm mighty glad o' the chance." He grinned. 
 
 They walked on almost in silence, with only a word now and 
 then. She seemed to be thinking deeply, and he didn't want to 
 disturb her. It was a delicious spring hour. The snow was all 
 gone, even under the hedges. The roads were warm and brown. 
 The red sun was flooding the valley with a misty, rich-colored 
 light, and against the orange and gold of the sky the hills stood 
 in Tyrian purple. Wagons were rattling along the road. Men on 
 the farms in the edge of the village could be heard whistling at 
 their work. A discordant jangle of a neighboring farmer's supper- 
 bell announced that it was time "to turn out." 
 
 Sanford was almost as gay as a lover. He seemed to be on the 
 point of regaining his old place in his wife's respect. Somehow 
 the possession of the package of money in his pocket seemed to 
 make him more worthy of her, to put him more on an equality 
 with her. 
 
 As they reached the little one-story square cottage he sat down 
 on the porch, where the red light fell warmly, and romped with 
 the children, while his wife went in and took off her things. She 
 "kept a girl" now, so that the work of getting supper did not 
 devolve entirely upon her. She came out soon to call them all 
 to the supper-table in the little kitchen back of the sitting-room. 
 
 The children were wild with delight to have "poppa" back, 
 and the meal was the merriest they had had for a long time. The 
 doors and windows were open, and the spring evening air came 
 in, laden with the sweet, suggestive smell of bare ground. The 
 alert chuckle of an occasional robin could be heard. 
 
 Mrs. Sanford looked up from her tea. "There's one thing I 
 don't like, Jim, and that's the way that money comes. You didn't 
 — you didn't really earn it." 
 
 "Oh, don't worry yourself about that. That's the way things go. 
 It's just luck." 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 245 
 
 "Well, I can't see it just that way. It seems to me just — ^like 
 gambling. You win, but — but somebody else must lose." 
 
 "Oh well, look a-here ; if you go to lookin' too sharp into things 
 like that, you'll find a good 'eal of any business like gamblin'." 
 
 She said no more, but her face remained clouded. On the way 
 down to the store they met Lincoln. 
 
 "Come down to the store, Link, and bring Joe. I want to talk 
 with yeh." 
 
 Lincoln stared, but said, "All right." Then added, as the others 
 walked away, "Well, that feller ain't got no cheek t' talk to me 
 like that — more cheek 'n a gov'ment mule!" 
 
 Jim took a seat near the door, and watched his wife as she went 
 about the store. She employed two clerks now, while she attended 
 to the books and the cash. He thought how different she was, and 
 he liked (and, in a way, feared) her cool, business-like manner, 
 her self-possession, and her smileless conversation with a drum- 
 mer who came in. Jim was puzzled. He didn't quite understand 
 the peculiar effect his wife's manner had upon him. 
 
 Outside, word had passed around that Jim had got back and 
 that something was in the wind, and the fellows began to drop in. 
 When McPhail came in and said, "Hello!" in his hearty way, San- 
 ford went over to his wife and said : 
 
 "Say, Nell, I can't stand this. I'm goin' to get rid o' this money 
 right off, nowl" 
 
 "Very well ; just as you please." 
 
 "Gents," he began, turning his back to the counter and smiling 
 blandly on them, one thumb in his vest pocket, "any o' you fellers 
 got anything against the Lumber County Bank — any certificates 
 of deposit, or notes?" 
 
 Two or three nodded, and McPhail said, humorously, slapping 
 his pocket, "I always go loaded." 
 
 "Produce your paper, gents," continued Sanford, with a dramatic 
 whang of a leathern wallet down into his palm. "I'm buying up 
 all paper on the bank." 
 
 It was a superb stroke. The fellows whistled and stared and 
 swore at one another. This was coming down on them. Link was 
 
246 Main-Travelled Roads 
 
 dumb with amazement as he received sixteen hundred and fifty 
 dollars in crisp, new bills. 
 
 "Andrew, it's your turn next." Sanford's tone was actually 
 patronizing as he faced McPhail. 
 
 "I was jokin'. I ain't got my certificate here." 
 
 "Don't matter — don't matter. Here's fifteen hundred dollars. 
 Just give us a receipt, and bring the certif. any time. I want to 
 get rid o' this stuff right now." 
 
 "Say, Jim, we'd like to know jest — ^jest where this windfall 
 comes from," said Vance, as he took his share. 
 
 "Comes from the copper country," was all he ever said about it. 
 
 "I don't see where he invested," Link said. "Wasn't a scratch 
 of a pen to show that he invested anything while he was in the 
 bank. Guess that's where our money went." 
 
 "Well, I ain't squealin'," said Vance. "I'm glad to get out of 
 it without asking any questions. I'll tell yeh one thing, though," 
 he added, as they stood outside the door; "we'd 'a' never smelt 
 of our money again if it hadn't *a' been f'r that woman in there. 
 She'd 'a' paid it alone if Jim hadn't 'a' made this strike, whereas 
 he never 'd 'a' — Well, all right. We're out of it." 
 
 It was one of the greatest moments of Sanford's life. He ex- 
 panded in it. He was as pleasantly aware of the glances of his wife 
 as he used to be when, as a clerk, he saw her pass and look in at 
 the window where he sat dreaming over his ledger. 
 
 As for her, she was going over the whole situation from this 
 new standpoint. He had been weak, he had fallen in her estima- 
 tion, and yet, as he stood there, so boyish in his exultation, the 
 father of her children, she loved him with a touch of maternal 
 tenderness and hope, and her heart throbbed in an unconscious, 
 swift determination to do him good. She no longer deceived her- 
 self. She was his equal — in some ways his superior. Her love 
 had friendship in it, but less of sex, and no adoration. 
 
 As she blew out the lights, stepped out on the walk, and turned 
 the kty in the lock, he said, "Well, Nellie, you won't have to 
 do that any more." 
 
A "Good Fellow's" Wife 247 
 
 "No; I won't have to, but I guess I'll keep on just the same, 
 Jim." 
 
 "Keep on? What for?" 
 
 "Well, I rather like it." 
 
 "But you don't need to " 
 
 "I like being my own boss," she said. "I've done a lot o' figur- 
 ing, Jim, these last three years, and it's kind o' broadened me, 
 I hope. I can't go back where I was. I'm a better woman than I 
 was before, and I hope and believe that I'm better able to be a 
 real mother to my children." 
 
 Jim looked up at the moon filling the warm, moist air with a 
 transfiguring light that fell in a luminous mist on the distant 
 hills. "I know one thing, Nellie; I'm a better man than I was 
 before, and it's all owin' to you." 
 
 His voice trembled a little, and the sympathetic tears came into 
 her eyes. She didn't speak at once — she couldn't. At last she 
 stopped him by a touch on the arm. 
 
 "Jim, I want a partner in my store. Let us begin again, right 
 here. I can't say that I'll ever feel just as I did once — I don't 
 know as it's right to. I looked up to you too much. I expected 
 too much of you, too. Let's begin again, as equal partners." She 
 held out her hand, as one man to another. He took it wonderingly. 
 
 "All right, Nell; I'll do it." 
 
 Then, as he put his arm around her, she held up her lips to be 
 kissed. "And we'll be happy again — happy as we deserve, I s'pose," 
 she said, with a smile and a sigh. 
 
 "It's almost like getting married again, Nell — for me." 
 
 As they walked off up the sidewalk in the soft moonlight, their 
 arms were interlocked. 
 
 They loitered like a couple of lovers.